Alinghi announced on it’s website that the million-dollar sails it used during the 33th America’s Cup, have been shipped to Haiti. The sails will be re-cut and made into 1000 shelter tents.
The carbon-fiber sails are strong, light and waterproof. The reshaping will be done in Haiti through an on-site work program.
After months and years of legal battle and 2 postponed races on monday and wednesday, the 33th America’s Cup finally started today on 14:35. The breeze was rather light (5 to 8 knots), but the boats had no problem racing at 20 to 25 knots around the 20 mile race course in front of Valencia.
It was a very interesting race where both boats showed that they truly are the best multihuls ever built. Lots of people seriously doubted if a deed of gift match (the first in over 20 years) would be an interesting match race or if one of the boats would be really superior to the other one, as was the case in 1988. Twenty years ago Dennis Conner’s giant catamaran “Stars and Stripes” then won 2-0 with a delta of more than 18 minutes on both matches.
The Swiss Alinghi team took the lead at the start after BMW Oracle missed theirs, but lost terrain quickly. BMW Oracle’s wing proved very powerful both up- and downwind and contributed to their win. In the end they had more than 3500 meter lead over the Swiss Alinghi team. The next race is scheduled for sunday, February 14th 2010.
Cutting Edge you say? Have a look at this blade-sharp hull of Alinghi’s giant 90 feet catamaran for the 33th America’s Cup which will (probably) be held in February 2010.
The organisation of the 33th America’s Cup has been a legal battle for about a year now. Immediately after Team Alinghi (backed by the Société Nautique de Genève) won the 32th Cup, they announced that they made an agreement with Spanish Team Desafio Español to organise the next Cup. As the “Challenger of Record”, the Spanish Team has some special privileges with the other contestants don’t have. They decide on the format of the race, even the class of boats that are to be used in the Cup.
The days after the announcement, a few “irregularities” came to light. As declared in the “Deed of Gift” of 1852 (the document that stipulates the rules of the America’s Cup races), the Challenger of Record must be backed by a Nautical Club that holds (among other things) annual regattas at sea. The Spanish government and the Spanish team wanted to create a true “Spanish” team, not backed by any regional Spanish yacht club. The obvious choice would be to use the Royal Spanish Sailing Federation (RFEV) as the challenging club. However, the RFEV doesn’t comply with the Deed of Gift, as it is a federation of clubs and not a club in itself, so they decided to create the CNEV (Club Nautico Español de Vela) specially for the occasion. However, the CNEV doesn’t hold and “real” regatta’s!
The legal battle that followed was very hard as the Golden Gate Yacht Club felt that they and not CNEV were the rightful challengers, but may have come to an end now. In a 3-2 ruling that surprised a lot of observes, the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court today ruled in favour of SNG declaring the CNEV the rightful Challenger of Record of the 33rd America’s Cup.
Ernesto Bertarelli, Alinghi president, is of course very happy with the decision: “We are delighted with this result; we can now continue with our vision of a multi-challenger event. The court’s decision validates our actions and enables us to put the America’s Cup back on the water.”
The legal interpretation of the Deed of Gift notwithstanding, I think it was time for a final decision. We’ve been battling in stead of sailing for over a year now, it’s time to get wet and get racing!