I remember the story at the time, read a book and saw a movie or documentry on TV recently. It is very easy to get sucked in to a project like this. I sailed with Robin Knox Johnston on the cat "British Airways 1" in 1986 and we set a Round Ireland Record.
There was a much hyped Round Europe Race in 1987 for Multihulls. One of the stop-overs was Dun Laoghaire, near Dublin, Ireland. We wanted an Irish boat in the race. We got a quote from Robin for chartering the cat - price of a new mainsail etc.
We were so sure that some Irish company would be thrilled to sponsor an Irish entry. We would have walked from our jobs to take on this project - the cat was almost booked - BUT none of the big companies were interested. Had to phone Robin and say sorry "It's not happening". It was actually a huge relief when the pressure was gone.