America's Cup Media Conference- Alinghi - Quotes, Images and Audio

by America's Cup Media and Sail-World on 15 Feb 2010
Tonight's Media Conference was the usual double act. First up was the Defender, Alinghi represented by team boss, Ernesto Bertarelli and skipper, Brad Butterworth. Brad was his usual laconic, relaxed self, with some great side comments at times. Ernesto was slightly more tense, clearly not that happy about the turn of events, but still gracious in defeat.



They were followed by the winners of the Match for the 33rd America's Cup, BMW Oracle Racing represented by team boss, Larry Ellison; Skipper, Russell Coutts; Tactician, John Kostecki; and USA-17 helmsman, James Spithill. All where in a a very celebratory mood, reasonably open with their answers to questions, except Ellison was a little guarded on the future venue, dates etc for the 34th America's Cup.

Alinghi
Ernesto Bertarelli (SUI) Team President and helm Alinghi (SUI):
'Over the last ten years anyone who has come close to the Alinghi team I guess understands what I feel now. There is a unique warmth, a unique spirit, a unique friendship that ties any person who has either worked, cheered or come close and met the Alinghi team. And so I am very proud of what we achieved over the last nine years.'

'It is not for me decide the future of the America’s Cup any more so I will wait and see what the future is going to bring us and where it going to take us. Then I will decide.'

'We could see there was a bit of difference in the boats, but that’s yacht racing.'

' They had a strategy. They got a little help from the legal system in New York that always makes things difficult for us Europeans to get the same sort advantages. They were able to change their boat when they saw ours, they were able to bring a wing and they were faster. So, good on them. Maybe I wouldn’t have done the same thing, but that is the America’s Cup, it is not the European Cup, it is the America’s Cup. The Americans have a bit of an advantage but they take the Cup back home. Let’s see what happens now.'

' I think the greatest achievement of Alinghi is being the first European Team to win the America’s Cup.'

'If you win the America’s Cup you hope you are not going to be sued!'

' The best part is not actually having the silverware itself. The best part is having the team that is successful, which has a spirit, which wins and god knows if we had won. If any team that has won over the last ten years has won it is Alinghi. Now these last two races we did not win, we were disadvantaged we didn’t have a boat which was quite fast enough, but with the boat we had, with the odds we had we did our best to show that we were not going to lay down. We exit with our heads high.'

Brad Butterworth (NZL) skipper-tactician Alinghi (SUI):
' I think both days were real races. Unfortunately it is just two races, but I’d like to congratulate Oracle on the job that they have done, designing and building and sailing that boat. It is not an easy thing to do the change their boat, to re-mode it and to push it when they saw what we were coming out with. And to the guys in our group as well. They did a great job with the time constraints they had.'

' We wanted to get the right hand side of the start line. We were a little bit bunched by the start being called so late in the day. We really weren’t close enough for the time that we had and we struggled to ping the ends and then gybe round and get to our end so we got a nice penalty for free and that was two for two, so we like be even numbers, that is good. We thought we’ve got the penalty we will gybe round and we could not get to the starboard layline to the committee boat which is what wanted, because of the spectator boats.'

'We managed to get what we wanted and I think we had better pressure on that side on that long starboard tack and we pushed the boat harder than we have ever pushed it on both tacks.'