Butterworth explains America's Cup options

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World on 10 Nov 2008
Alinghi skipper. Brad Butterworth gave an impromptu and wide ranging media conference on the final day of the Desafio Trophy, in Valencia.

The topics under discussion ranged from the multihull challenge, where Butterworth revealed that Alinghi's response to the BMW Oracle Racing's 90fter was close to having all its components complete, and would soon go through the assembly process.

'We have a multihull that is close to being completed, it is innovative, and with huge loads. They will be exciting to sail for a day and then you’ll be scared s***less most of the time,' he commented

On the court action, and circumstances that led to the litigation, Butterworth said that he believed that influence of people not directly involved in the sailing had been largely to blame.

However it was his comments on the development of the new America's Cup class and some of the thinking behind the more unusual aspects of the 33rd Protocol, that were perhaps the most interesting.

On the next, and second, Competitors Meeting to determine the design parameters for the new class, he commented: 'The next meeting will be more interesting than the last because they will start talking about sizes, beams and drafts and weight. I think it will be somewhere between the current boat and the AC90 in length but a lot more modern boat, a lot more dynamic, and a lot more dynamic than what we are sailing now.'

Turning to the view that it would be better to stage the next America's Cup in the current yachts to Version 5 of the America's Cup rule, Butterworth was of the view that a new rule would encourage new teams to enter the competition.

'There are a lot of new teams that have come into the game, and they don’t have Version 5’s and 99% of the teams are happy to start the process again and keep the playing field level.

'We want to have a situation where a new team can come in build one boat and have a chance at winning.'

Butterworth says the Competitor Meetings are a meeting of the minds of some of the top designers, as they try and influence the shape of the new rule and the type of yacht that it will produce.

'We don’t have any boundaries with the competitors. The process is chaired by Tom Schnackenberg. You get guys with strong opinions on his the rule should be, and they sell that to the group, and then another does the same. It goes very well without the outside influences. Ernesto wants to keep the costs down so that they don’t spiral out of control.'

Coming back to the cost reduction theme, Butterworth reflected on the racing life of SUI-100 which had both won the America's Cup and now the Desafio Trophy:

'The problem we have, at present, is that with a yacht like SUI-100, it was launched a few months before the Cup, did some tune-up, sailed for seven races and yesterday was her eighth race. With the new class we want something that has more use and an owner can to take to other regattas like the Kings Cup and race there.'

Butterworth believes the boats need to be more user friendly to sail and can race in their own class. 'It’s an idea that came from the old J-boats, we are not talking about doing a Fastnet or Hobart, but something that we can sail in days races or short coastal races.

'When there is not a Cup year, or stagnant period they can use them for sponsor sailing and give some more back.

'It was the same as the 12 Metres when they had a world championship outside the Cup year.

'No-one is walking over broken glass to get into this game. There will only be 12-13 teams registered by the time entries close.'

While many have welcomed the 2010 scheduled start for the Challenger Selection Series and 33rd America's Cup, Butterwort says they are very tight for time to get a series running in 2010.

'We are on the ground floor now in terms of timing', he said. 'We have to get going now if we are going to get a competition going by 2010. We have a fundamental obligation as the Trustee to organise the next America’s Cup, which is what we are doing. What ever happen in court happens in court, and if we are successful we will have an event in 2010, and that will help kick start this thing.

'We can organise the class rules, the guys can do their testing, design their boat for four or five months and start to build it, and that just happens to be at a nice time of the year when the Court case will be. Hopefully we will, understand what the outcome of the Court case will be. So there is limited amount of resources that have to go into this.

'We want to have the rule finalised by the end of the year. It is not rocket science for the guys who have done it before. They have the 90ft rule, which they have agreed already – that will form the template.

'Eighteen months is a good agreed timeframe for the rule to be established – any shorter than that and you favour the bigger teams.'

The one new boat restriction on teams, along with the entry of the Defender in the Challenger Series at the Round Robin stage have been two of the most controversial issues in the 33rd America's cup Protocol.

Butterworth says it is all about fairness and maintaining a balance in the lead in competition between the Challenger and Defender.

'Over the years the whole issue between the challenger and defender is the balance of fairness', he explains.

'If you are a Defender and you are restricted to one boat – what are you going to do – sail on your own? You may as well not even compete - it is that big a difference. You saw in the last Cup, when the Acts finished and the knock out started you saw the competition level went up from the semi-final to the final and then onto the America’s Cup itself.

'It took us several races in the last America's Cup, to get our standard high enough and be able to beat them. It was very, very difficult go up and up. And I saw that fair, really fair. It was much the same sort of regatta in 2003, and in 2000 it was the same sort of thing, but we were very strong with our boats.

'If there is just one boat, you have to beat everyone to win, so why not all sail together?

'We are going to work with the Challengers so as not to impact on who goes through to win the Challenger Final. We don’t want to impact on their regatta, but we do want to sail with them.'

Finally, one of the journalists makes the suggestion that the compromise might be to have the Defender excluded from the CSS but allowed instead to build two boats and tune up in the traditional way of the modern America's cup era.

Butterworth chuckles at the thought: 'I would be happy with that. That would be a great idea – I will table that!'

For the full audio www.valenciasailing.com!click_here and scroll down.