Alinghi wins America's Cup 5-2

by Daphne Morgan Barnicoat on 4 Jul 2007 Alinghi, the Swiss Defender of the America’s Cup from the Société Nautique de Genève, won the 32nd America’s Cup Match today with a 5-2 victory over the Challenger Emirates Team New Zealand. Alinghi wrapped up the exciting match with a nail-biting, 2 second win in today’s deciding seventh race.

'This is a fantastic day for Alinghi, to win the America’s Cup again after four years of hard work! The crew, the designers and the shore team have done an incredible job throughout the series, we have fought hard against a strong challenger and have won. We’ll be celebrating tonight!' declared team skipper, Brad Butterworth.

Alinghi was the first European team to win the America’s Cup in 2003, and now it has achieved another first by successfully defending it in Europe. Alinghi joins Team Dennis Conner and Team New Zealand as the only crews in Cup history to win as a Challenger and Defender.

With many lead changes throughout the series and an average margin of victory of 23 seconds, the 32nd Match will be remembered for its excitement and drama. The tightening of the America’s Cup Class Rule has helped produce this highly competitive racing. The differences were slight as ETNZ was a well prepared team with a quick boat and solid crew work.

'Even though the boats are not that similar, in terms of their appendage packages and hull shapes, we thought it would be close,' said Grant Simmer, Alinghi’s managing director and design team coordinator. 'This now is a contest of metres - metres to get you in a position where you can get a strong lee bow, or metres where you can just get across the other boat. It’s so close now, that every cm is significant.'

The close racing was evident again in today’s race. Alinghi led at the first windward mark by 7 seconds, but ETNZ snatched the lead back to round the leeward gate 14 seconds ahead.

Alinghi pulled even with ETNZ up the second windward leg and the Kiwis tried a drastic move, tacking to port above the layline to the mark. As Alinghi approached on starboard ETNZ opted to try and duck behind to get its bow to leeward and prevent Alinghi from rounding. But the Kiwis failed to keep clear and Alinghi was forced to alter course. The on-water umpires penalised ETNZ.

Near the finish, with the win less than one mile away, the wind shifted and died and Alinghi was forced to hoist a headsail and regain boat speed. ETNZ was completing its penalty turn as Alinghi was speeding up. This was just enough for the Swiss team to nudge its bow across the finish line by the slimmest of margins and win the America’s Cup again!

Alinghi would like to thank the main partners, co-sponsors and official suppliers for their support of this campaign and for playing an instrumental role in the team achieving today’s victory.

Other news:
Riding high on the success of winning the America’s Cup again and in its desire to bring the Cup to the people, Alinghi will be doing a ‘homecoming tour’ of Switzerland with the famous trophy starting in Geneva on the 8 July at the Parc de Eaux Vives from 17:00 onwards. This homecoming festival coincides with the 150th anniversary of the creation of the America’s Cup event and will be open to the public. From there members of the team and the America’s Cup will tour Zurich (10 July), Bern (12 July) and Lugano (14 July) to meet the public and recount the adventures of this victorious 32nd America’s Cup campaign. Additionally, the team will look to visit other countries and continents over the next few months to give sailing and sports fans worldwide the opportunity to see the Auld Mug first-hand and understand more about the unique and growing competition that is the America’s Cup.

www.alinghi.com