(Almost) time to play

Alinghi and Société Nautique de Genève – as ordered by the Court of Appeals – have accepted the Golden Gate Yacht Club’s Notice of Challenge in a 90x90-footer and the team have trained their sights on a multihull 33rd America’s Cup Match in May 2010. The Villeneuve boatshed on the shores of Lake Geneva is now humming again with a full boatbuilding and design group back in place, and in early May the team moved major elements of the giant Swiss multihull to an assembly tent closer to the water in preparation for a summer launch.

Meanwhile, the sailing team have launched two Décision 35s and started on-the-water training. Two crews, one led by Ed Baird and the other by Ernesto Bertarelli, will race the Challenge Julius Baer, a competitive multihull series that began with the Grand Prix Corum on 8 May. There Alinghi’s two entries faced a strong 10-boat fleet that included some of the best offshore multihull sailors in the world... Alain Gautier, Franck Cammas and Loïck Peyron to name but a few.

Since the previous meeting in Geneva on 23 April BMW Oracle/GGYC have rejected an invitation to resume talks on terms for the 33rd America’s Cup, including the date, venue, race format, participation of other challengers and the presentation of the Custom-House Registry of vessel. The American Challenger of Record responded by reminding the SNG of the latest legal pro- ceedings scheduled for New York on 14 May. BMW Oracle also appear to have closed the door to other challengers, disregarding the Italian team Green Comm’s new multihull challenge. The offer to negotiate remains open, but today the only way is forward; Alinghi skipper Brad Butterworth has an update on preparations.

SH: Recently you took some time out to attend the America’s Cup Hall of Fame dinner at the NYYC...

Brad Butterworth: It was a good evening and a tribute to Halsey Herreshoff and the excellent job that he is doing looking after the Hall of Fame and the museum in Bristol, RI. It brings together so much of the history of the Cup. It was also great to be in the model room in the New York Yacht Club and to see all the old boats – especially to see how many of the old Deed of Gift Match boats were there all lined up in a row! A return-to-the-past moment!!

SH: Returning briefly to the meeting in Geneva on 23 April – was there a real attempt at mutual consent from both parties?

BB: There was and is a genuine attempt at mutual consent, for sure. But a lot of water has gone under the bridge. We sat there and discussed a multi-national event – bearing in mind that Alinghi had just been through two years of working on that with 18 other teams and had finalised the process – and BMW Oracle wanted to start again from scratch.

We couldn’t even agree on the one-boat programme; the two sides are poles apart and even poles apart with what the chal- lengers had agreed with us in the last round of talks. Having said that, we have offered since then to resume talks on date, venue, format and so on, but they have rejected the invitation point blank – basically saying ‘see you in court’. Our offer remains open; despite our differences there are still things that can be discussed.

SH: What was GGYC’s reaction to the request for the Custom- House Registry of vessel?

BB: The meeting started with us asking for the Custom-House Registry for the boat they have built and they denied that was the boat that they are going to use in the Cup. Now the court will deal with it on 14 May, unfortunately.

SH: So AC33 is definitely going to be in multihulls...

BB:The GGYC Notice of Challenge is with a 90x90ft boat, which is a multihull. When they won their court case we had to decide whether or not to get building, because in the end we were only going to have 10 months to get ready to race them. Obviously they had built their boat and have had it in the water for some time; in fact, throughout 2008 they pushed to race us even though we weren’t ready. Hence Ernesto was forced to take the tough decision to build a multihull.

In parallel at that time we were really trying to organise a multi- national event with the 18 entered challengers – had we won the case we would be racing AC33s next year in Valencia (actually had BMW Oracle not taken us to court we would have already started the round-robins in the AC90s in Valencia!). But the fact is the court ruled in GGYC’s favour, they challenged with a multihull and have built one and so we have reacted to that and also built one. That is where we stand today.

SH: Do you really believe it would be possible to include other teams in a multihull America’s Cup?

BB: If it’s possible for BMW or for us to build a boat and be ready in 10 months’ time then it’s possible for other teams to have a go. There is interest in Italy where Green Comm Challenge have announced a challenge. GGYC have disregarded it, though; it seems to me they are not interested in a multi-challenger event.

SH: How are Alinghi preparing for a multihull match?

BB: These boats will be different from any boat any of us have ever sailed before. But really the preparation for the Cup is like any other: we want to get on the boat that we are going to be defending with. So right now the emphasis is on boatbuilding, finishing the boat and launching it and getting sailing, and the sooner we can do that the better off we will be. That doesn’t change. In the meantime, there is a bunch of us sailing the D35s on Lake Geneva; trying to hone our skills the best we can through the regattas this season.

SH: How has your technical team treated the task of a DoG match?

BB: It’s a dream come true for most of those guys! Now they can build the boat they want, they are not constrained by too many rules. They can decide what they want to do and hopefully they have come up with a boat that is pretty fast!

SH: What stage is your multihull at?

BB: It’s in one piece... but there is a lot of finishing off to do! Hopefully we’ll get it together before the summer really cranks up here and we can get out and start sailing properly. It’ll be launched on Lake Geneva but we have yet to decide on a final venue. We are going to use our time carefully and find a good venue that has conditions in which we can race these boats properly.

SH: And are you personally excited about a multihull AC...

BB: I’m excited because it’s a lot different from anything I have ever done before. I’ve done the normal Cup cycle all my career and never seen anything like this. I was never involved in the 1988 challenge that happened with New Zealand, I was busy sailing round the world with Peter Blake. This is something completely different: two state- of-the-art multihulls in a flat-out race to see who’s really fastest.

Showing promise... at the first round of the Challenge Julius Baer, in D35 cats on Lake Geneva, Ed Baird and Brad Butterworth (left) had to play second fiddle to the boss, eventually finishing in sixth overall after an improving string of final races. However, Ernesto Bertarelli came on even stronger on the windy last day to win the opening regatta from runner-up Loïck Peyron on Okalys-Corum

DATES AND DOCUMENTS...
As we close for press BMW Oracle Racing have taken Alinghi back to court, this time for Contempt of the Supreme Court Order. The Americans’ issue du jouris the date for the Match. Alinghi and the Société Nautique de Genève, as the Defender of the America’s Cup and trustee of the Deed of Gift, cannot contravene the competition’s governing document and race as ordered by the court in February in the northern hemisphere. BOR insist that February is the date, but their Notice of Challenge states the northern hemisphere as the location. But the Deed of Gift states: ‘The Challenging Club shall give 10 months’ notice, in writing, naming the days for the proposed races; but no race shall be sailed in the days inter- vening between 1 November and 1 May if the races are to be conducted in the northern hemisphere; and no race shall be sailed in the days intervening between 1 May and 1 November if the races are to be conducted in the southern hemisphere.’ To save court time and speed up the return to the water Alinghi have also asked the Supreme Court to address the issue of the ‘pending’ Customs-House Registry of vessel at the same hearing on 14 May. This document has been due ‘as soon as possible’ since August 2008 when the much publicised BOR Deed of Gift Match multihull was launched.