BMW Oracle, Alinghi, 33rd America's Cup in Valencia 14 February 2010 (photo: ©Carlo Borlinghi / Alinghi)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Alinghi’s president, Ernesto Bertarelli, has taken an upbeat tone about the future, now that the team’s solid defeat at the hands of BMW Oracle in the 33rd America’s Cup sailing race is behind him. He praised the resilience of his team in a statement on the Geneva-based Alinghi’s web site Wednesday 17 February, part of an announcement that the boat and its team will celebrate Alinghi’s 10th birthday in September 2010.
“Alinghi has had a fantastic run in the America’s Cup. We created this team 10 years ago.
BMW Oracle team walking out to the boat Sunday 14 February before the race they won, taking the 33rd America's Cup sailing title (photo: ©2010 Guilain Grenier/BMW Oracle)
Valencia, Spain (GenevaLunch) - BMW Oracle has taken the America’s Cup sailing title, winning the second race Sunday 14 February almost as clearly as it won the first race two days earlier. The American boat finished 5.26 minutes ahead of Alinghi: Oracle’s technology, with its massive rigid sail, was the real winner. The race was close during the first leg but BMW Oracle pulled ahead and the winner was never in doubt.
Links to other sites: Alinghi, America’s Cup, BMW Oracle
Valencia, Spain (GenevaLunch) - The boats waited until nearly the last minute to begin their second race of sailing’s America’s Cup sailing race, after delays while the wind shifted. Alinghi began the race with a penalty, just as it did in the first race, which it lost to BMW Oracle by 15 minutes.
Live and Updates on the America’s Cup site.
Oracle, headed for a clear victory in race 1, America's Cup, 12 February (photo: BMW Oracle)
Valencia, Spain (GenevaLunch) – The water and wind were fine at last on Friday, after days of waiting for sailing conditions off the coast of Valencia to be right for the America’s Cup race to begin. But once Alinghi and Oracle put their tall sails to work, American Oracle’s trimaran dominated the race and won neatly over the Swiss catamaran, finishing eight and a half minutes ahead.
The “wing”, as Oracle’s rigid mast has become known, put in a stellar performance, as did the boat’s aggressive crewing. Alinghi’s lead at the outset, due to a stalled start on Oracle’s part, faded, and by the top mark at the end of the 20 nautical mile upwind first leg Oracle was 3 minutes 21 seconds ahead. By the end of the race Oracle’s lead had more than doubled. Alinghi was hampered by a penalty turn handed out early in the race. The Swiss boat was expected to regain time in the down wind leg, but, Sail-World reports, “it was obvious that, in the soft conditions, Alinghi was at a disadvantage.”
Alinghi held a steady pace, but that was no match for Oracle’s performance on the second, downwind leg, and Alinghi’s finish was something of a shambles.
Waiting for the race to start, Friday 12 February, in Valencia (photo: BMW Oracle
Valencia, Spain (GenevaLunch) – The America’s Cup sailing race has finally reached water. The two tall elegant sailboats built using the latest technology are fighting out the first of their two or three races. The race began shortly before 15:00 Friday 12 February after being delayed Monday and Wednesday due to no wind the first day and high seas the second.
The match can be viewed online live on the America’s Cup site or on the TSR web site in French.
BMW Oracle Tuesday night in Valencia - waiting, waiting
Update / 2 13:05 Valencia, Spain (GenevaLunch) - The most that can be said about the America’s Cup sailing race is that it’s having trouble filling its sails, quite literally. The race between Swiss Alinghi and US BMW Oracle has been delayed until Friday at least 13:00, due to “leftover seas” from yesterday’s wind.
“The waves were the biggest problem. I think they were about 1.3m average size in the start area,” said Alinghi strategist Murray Jones. “That means we could’ve had a peak of 1.8m and that’s the biggest issue.
”There was a swell coming from one direction and waves from an offset of 90 degrees to that. We’ve been out in conditions not quite that bad, but it’s heinous. I think they’ve done the right thing by not sending us out there,” Jones said.
The race was scheduled to start Monday, but there was too little wind. The teams spent Wednesday morning at their bases, waiting to see which of two contradictory weather forecasts would win out: offshore or onshort breezes were predicted. In the end, they canceled each other out. Races are now scheduled for 12, 14 and 16 February.
Twiddling their thumbs: Alinghi and BMW Oracle wait for the America's Cup race to start (photo: ©2010 Gilles Martin-Raget/BMW Oracle)
Valencia, Spain (GenevaLunch) – The America’s Cup sailing race, scheduled to begin Monday morning 8 February at 10:06, was postponed due to too little wind. By 10:20 the wind was rising from the southwest, but the tall masts of the two catamarans scheduled to race were forced to wait to show off their prowess. The world’s arguably most prestigious international racing cup pits Geneva-based Alinghi against San Francisco’s BMW Oracle.
The two have been sparring for months in courtrooms and now they move onto the water for the real battle, where new technology promises to be a key feature. The three-day fight for the cup is likely to be less gripping, notes Swiss television TSR, than the last America’s Cup in 2007. It lasted three months and had several participants, but which also was a tight and dramatic race between Alinghi and Emirates Team New Zealand.
The races can be followed live on the America’s Cup site and TSR online. Both teams are using Twitter, YouTube and Facebook to promote the race.
The race consists of:
the best of 3 races, as specified in the “Deed of Gift”, official founding document for the competition
• Race 1: Upwind-downwind 20 miles per leg
• Race 2: 39 nautical-mile equilateral triangle, first leg
• Race 3 (if necessary): Upwind-downwind 20 miles per leg.
Background, GenevaLunch
Links to other sites: Alinghi, BMW Oracle
Oracle vs Alinghi
© Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
BMW Oracle on the water in Valencia 3 February
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – America’s Cup, the top international sailing event, may happen in Valencia after all, it appears, after months of legal battles between Alinghi and the challenger, BMW Oracle, threatened to sink the race. Remaining legal challenges, over such matters as Alinghi unilaterally setting the start time of the race at 10:06 Monday 8 February were put to rest by the International Jury Wednesday 3 February, which said yes, Société Nautique de Genève (SNG) has the right to set the rules.
The five-person jury early Wednesday refused several challenges from BMW Oracle to what the SNG argues are its rights to set the rules. The Geneva-based SNG, home to Alinghi, holds the Deed of Gift, which traditionally gives the bulk of decision-making power to the defending champion.
Alinghi on the water in Valencia, 1 February 2010 (photo: ©2010 George Johns/Alinghi)
One of the BMW Oracle objections concerns dumping substances in the sea while racing. The jury refused the San Francisco-based team’s objections to rules for this, it emphasized that all applicable laws apply during the race.
Weather will ultimately determine if the race begins on time. The weather forecast for Monday and Tuesday: 8-20C, 20 percent chance of rain and winds picking up from 10kph Sunday night to 21-25kph.
Links to other sites: Alinghi, BMW Oracle
Title: Alinghi 5 at the museum
Location: Nyon, Vaud
Link out: Click here
Description: Find out about Alinghi, the America’s Cup and follow the race live from the museum.
Start Date: 2010-01-28
End Date: 2010-02-27
Alinghi sailing near Valencia 21 January 2010 (photo: GJ, Alinghi)
Left to right: Ricardo Peralta, Spanish government delegate; Ernesto Bertarelli, Alinghi team president; Alec Tournier, SNG general secretary; Rita Barberá, the mayor of Valencia and Vicente Rambla, vice-president Valencia regional government (Photo: Alinghi)
New York, NY, USA (GenevaLunch) – New York Justice Shirley Kornreich told Geneva-based Alinghi and San Francisco sailing team BMW Oracle Friday in a telephone conference call Friday 29 January that she will not rule on the legality of sails used by Alinghi in the America’s Cup sailing race before the scheduled start to the competition.
The America’s Cup, generally considered the most prestigious race in the sailing world, is scheduled to be raced in 10 days in Valencia, Spain.
Kornreich has presided over a series of legal battles that have threatened the race since Alinghi won the last one in July 2007.
Alinghi promptly announced that the race “is free to proceed as ordered by previous New York rulings: in Valencia on the 8, 10 and 12 February.”
The state of the AI en route to the mountains, glorious Jura snow
Weekend walk and circus special in Nyon, Swiss skiers and boarders
Jura (Crozet) Wednesday 20 January (image: S Curran)
Crozet with blue skies - Geneva in the fog below
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - It’s January, so expect a mix of Spring moments and sudden snow showers on the lakefront but pure winter goodness in the mountains this weekend.
Wednesday it snowed in Nyon and along the lakefront, throughout the week the Jura has thrived, as large amounts of the white stuff came down, and the Alps have had sunshine again after gloomy spells.
The road out of town
If you’re heading out of the Geneva area to the Swiss Alps be aware that this is the first weekend when the new A1 autoroute signaling system is open, adding a third lane in each direction between Morges and Lausanne. The system is very easy to follow and there have been no accidents since it was put in place Monday, but you do need to drive attentively, with other drivers sometimes surprised to find the system there. It operates only in the afternoons, until Monday 25 January when it goes into use full-time.
Weather forecast
BMW-Oracle says Alinghi's sails not made in Switzerland
Update 18:35 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – America’s Cup challenger BMW-Oracle and defender Alinghi are set to go back to court in New York after negotiations broke down in Singapore 12 January. The two sailing teams and their boats are in Valencia, Spain to contest sailing’s oldest and most prestigious race, a best of three meets that begins 8 February. Final details of the rules for the races are under discussion, but a sticking point lately has been the source of Alinghi’s sails.
BMW-Oracle maintains that Alinghi’s sail, made in the USA, violates the Deed of Gift’s stipulation that the boat be entirely built in the country the team represents, in this case Switzerland, home of the Société Nautique de Genève (SNG). The Deed of Gift is the document that lays down the ground rules for the 159-year-old race. Alinghi says bluntly that BMW-Oracle has it wrong.
Alinghi in November 2009
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Sailing’s biggest race might just happen after all: Alinghi and the Société Nautique de Genève have published the draft Sailing Instructions and Notice of Race for the 33rd American’s Cup. The race opens 8 February in Valencia, Spain. The two published draft documents have been sent to the BMW Oracle team, against whom Alinghi is expected to race. The two have been locking in legal battles for several months over a number of issues, including the size and other details for the boats.
The draft Notice of Race provides details for the boats in section 7.
Draft Sailing Instructions, America’s Cup 2010 and Notice of Race
Alinghi in Valencia. © 2010 Jose Delgado / Alinghi
Valencia, Spain (GenevaLunch) – Both defending champion Alinghi and US challenger BMW Oracle have arrived in the port of Valencia for final preparations before the series of three races that kicks off 8 February. The Alinghi team has been unloading the ship that transported containers, masts and other material from the Persian Gulf port of Ras Al Khaimah. The BMW Oracle trimaran, BOR 90, arrived in port a day earlier.
Alinghi is featured at a special exhibition at Nyon’s Musée du Léman which shows the extent to which Lake Geneva boating traditions and knowledge as well as Swiss high-tech technology in the form of composite materials and design from EPFL contributed to the making of the America’s Cup defender.
Other links: Alinghi, BMW Oracle
BMW Oracle left California 15 December for Valencia, Spain
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Alinghi sailing team is preparing to defend its World Cup title in the chilly winter waters of Valencia, Spain in 2010, following a decision Tuesday 15 December by a panel of New York Supreme Court judges to uphold an earlier decision. A judge ruled 30 October against the choice by Société Nautique de Genève’s of Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates for the next America’s Cup. The four-judge panel also upheld an earlier decision to exclude rudders from the measurement of the load waterline length of the race yacht.
Alinghi will face BMW Oracle in February 2010 in Valencia. The BMW team, based in San Francisco, left California Tuesday for Valencia, to start preparing for the race.
Background, GenevaLunch
Links to other sites: Alinghi, BMW Oracle
Alinghi to race in Valencia
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Alinghi sailing team will face its challenger BMW-Oracle in Valencia, Spain, in the best of three races in February 2010. Société Nautique de Genève (SNG), the Geneva, Switzerland sailing club that Alinghi represents, says that the Golden Gate Yacht Club, which is represented by BMW-Oracle, has not replied to its suggestion a week ago that the race be held in waters off the east coast of Australia. Thus the only other venue open to it legally, in order to comply with the February date, is Valencia.
BMW-Oracle with mast, photo by Gilles Martin-Raget
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Team Alinghi has suggested a venue for the 33rd America’s Cup race with challenger BMW-Oracle off the coast of Australia, in order “unlock” the race and “return the competition to the water”. The announcement 5 November comes a day before a hearing in the New York Supreme Court scheduled to determine whether Alinghi’s favoured venue in Ras al-Khaimah, United Arab Emirates will be upheld by the court.
Justice Shirley Kornreich had ruled 27 October that Alinghi must choose a southern hemisphere location or Valencia, Spain for the race in February. The ongoing legal battle between the two teams threatened to postpone the actual race. Alinghi appealed that decision.
Where the race will be decided. ©NARAL
Geneva, Switzerland and New York, USA (GenevaLunch) – Team Alinghi, representing the Société Nautique de Genève in the 33rd America’s Cup race, has announced it will appeal the decision by Justice Shirley Kornreich of the New York Supreme Court to deny Alinghi the right to defend its title in Ras al-Khaimah (RAK), United Arab Emirates, in February 2010.
Kornreich had ruled 27 October that the race be held in the southern hemisphere or in Valencia, Spain, basing her decision on the terms of the “Deed of Gift” which stipulates that the race be held in the southern hemisphere between 1 November and 1 May.
In search of safer seas (image ©2009 Alinghi/Carlo Borlenghi)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – New York’s Supreme Court has ruled against the Geneva-based Société Nautique de Genève’s (SNG) choice of venue for the America’s Cup 33rd edition. The race was to be held in Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates, in the the Persian Gulf, in February 2010. The 27 October ruling stipulates that the race must be held in the southern hemisphere between 1 November and 1 May.
”This is a disappointing result as we were certain that Justice Cahn’s May 2008 decision allowed the Defender to choose Valencia or ‘any other location’,” said Lucien Masmejan, Société Nautique de Genève legal counsel.
Alinghi in less contentious waters. Photo: © Dinah Roberts
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The oldest, most prestigious sailing competition may be decided in a New York courtroom instead of in the Persian Gulf waters off the Arabian peninsula. The defending team Alinghi, representing Geneva’s Société Nautique de Genève (SNG) put their huge catamaran into the water off Ras al-Khaimah (RAK), United Arab Emirates Saturday 17 October, but a New York judge must still decide whether the venue, traditionally chosen by the defender, may be allowed to stand.
On Saturday, Ernesto Bertarelli, the billionaire backer of Alinghi, called on the BMW-Oracle team to get down to business and start sailing.
Alinghi 5, warming up to the America's Cup 2010, in Genoa, Italy 17 August 2009 (© 2009 Carlo Borlenghi/Alinghi)
Geneva, Switzerland/New York, USA (GenevaLunch) - The details of the boat BMW will be sailing in the 2010 America’s Cup race do not have to be divulged until two weeks before the race, a judge in New York has said.
The New York Supreme Court announced a verdict 22 September that went against the Société Nautique de Genève, home to the Alinghi team, and holder of the America’s Cup sailing trophy. It rejected Alinghi’s claim to disqualify the Oracle team from the 2010 America’s Cup race because, Alinghi told the court, the Golden Gate Yacht Club, represented by Oracle, had not provided, by the deadline, the required technical details concerning Oracle’s boat. The court agreed with Oracle, which had argued that a boat undergoes constant technical modifications until the moment it begins to compete.
In her ruling, Supreme Court Judge Shirley Kornreich nevertheless scolded the Oracle team for “unsportsmanlike behaviour” which “resulted in substantially reducing SNG’s (Société Nautique de Genève) advantage as originally contemplated by the Deed of Gift.”
BMW Oracle 90 foot trimaran, sea trials in Washington, USA, 13 August 2009. Photographer: Gilles Martan-Raget
Both teams remain committed to begin the race in February 2010.
The judge’s decision comes on the heels publication of a previously confidential agreement between SNG and the International Sailing Federation (ISAF).
New Alinghi craft sailing from Lausanne to Geneva, July 2009 (photo: D Roberts)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Sponsors are lining up again to provide financial backing to Alinghi, after a dry spell that left multimillionaire owner Ernesto Bertarelli on his own paying the bills for the Geneva-based Alinghi team.
Alinghi 5 flies away, Photo ©Carlo Borlenghi's/Alinghi
Lake Geneva region, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The giant catamaran Alinghi 5 took to the skies and bid farewell to Lake Geneva. A Russian military helicopter Mi26 took the catamaran towards Genoa, Italy where it will continue its training towards the America’s Cup.
Alinghi “flew” along the Rhone River before gaining altitude at the Great Saint Bernard Pass in the border with Italy. The helicopter and sailboat landed safely in Genoa at 14:30.
Le Bouveret, Valais, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The air is filled with noise and excitement – and a very large helicopter and a boat called Alinghi – as the new America’s Cup catamaran, all 90 feet of it, is airlifted from Lake Geneva to Genoa, Italy this morning, via the Saint Bernard pass. Follow it with the Alinghi team on Twitter (note: Twitter has been hit by attacks and you might not be able to log in to comment). Ed. note: FiSpace, a regular GenevaLunch photo contributor, alerted us – his elegant image of Alinghi on the lake is currently our home page featured photo)
