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Alinghi to face Team New Zealand for America's Cup

AUCKLAND, New Zealand (AP) -- Once again, the America's Cup is not going back to America.

Switzerland's Alinghi beat San Francisco's Oracle 5-1 in the challenger final, earning the right to face defending champion Team New Zealand.

Despite the lopsided score in the best-of-nine series, Alinghi and Oracle produced some of the best racing in years. But Alinghi made the most of wind shifts and penalties and equipment failures to Oracle to capture the Louis Vuitton Cup, ending a four-month challenger series that began Oct. 1 and involved nine boats.

"It's Alinghi's day, Alinghi's week, and they sailed very well," Oracle skipper Chris Dickson said.

Alinghi, led by Russell Coutts, will face Team New Zealand in the final beginning Feb. 15. New Zealand has won the last two America's Cup regattas with Coutts at the helm.

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"We've expected that we'd be facing them for quite some time," Team New Zealand syndicate head Tom Schnackenberg said. "They're sailing very well, and they'll be well-rested, so I think it's going to be a great series."

As the boats were towed to Viaduct Basin for the victory ceremony, Oracle's crew applauded Alinghi. At the presentations, Alinghi syndicate head Ernesto Bertarelli, also the navigator, kissed and hugged wife Kristy. Oracle chief Larry Ellison, a software billionaire, spoke quietly with Dickson.

"I don't like to lose, but I knew that Larry and his team would be very tough, and he was," Bertarelli said.

When asked if he would try again to win the Cup, Ellison said: "Absolutely."

The America's Cup has carried an unmistakable stamp of U.S. power throughout the race's 152-history. But Oracle's loss leaves the America's Cup without a U.S. boat in the final for the second straight year -- the only times ever.

It is also the third time in four challenge series that the winner has come from Europe -- Italy in 1992 and 2000, and Alinghi. Team New Zealand won the challenger series in 1995, then beat Dennis Conner and the San Diego Yacht Club for the Cup.

Oracle carried a penalty for all of Sunday's race after failing to give way to Alinghi during the prestart. Although Alinghi finished just under 10 seconds ahead of Oracle, the victory margin was 2 minutes, 34 seconds. Oracle had to do a penalty turn after it crossed the finish line.

"I think we had a very good tactical series, particularly near the end," Coutts said. "We were two very good teams, but I think we capitalized on our opportunities more than they did."

Oracle took the lead for the first time in the six-leg, 18.5-nautical-mile race by 10 seconds after three legs. On the final leg, as Oracle closed on Alinghi's lead, Dickson said, "We can still win this thing." But Alinghi, knowing Oracle had to discharge the penalty, sailed conservatively to hold its lead.

Oracle's campaign ends after 34 races, including a 12-4 record in the round-robin series and 8-0 in two playoff series against OneWorld of Seattle.

Alinghi was 13-3 in the opening round-robin competition and its only loss in 14 elimination series matches since was to Oracle in the finals.

Bertarelli, the 37-year-old owner of Europe's third-largest biotech company, invested US$70 million in his first America's Cup campaign. He calls sailing the perfect release from the demands of business.

"It allowed me to have a normal life, because when you're locked up in corporate life it's very difficult to meet real people. So I started competitive sailing and I met a lot of people after that," he said.

"Sailing brings me back to earth. I just enjoy the competition, enjoy people who share the same passion, and when I'm on board ... I'm just another person."

Coutts gets warm welcome, for now

AUCKLAND, New Zealand (AP) -- The cool current of disapproval that swirled around Russell Coutts through four months of the America's Cup challenger series warmed in a moment of celebration Sunday.

New Zealanders haven't easily forgiven Coutts, who received the challenge trophy on behalf of Switzerland's Alinghi, for leaving their team at the end of the last Cup, taking with him many of New Zealand's best sailors, to join the syndicate of a foreign billionaire -- Ernesto Bertarelli.

But in luminous sunlight on a warm Sunday evening, as thousands thronged the docks and balconies of downtown Viaduct Harbor to witness the last act of the series, there was a willingness to forget.

Alinghi won the sixth race of its challenger final against Oracle of San Francisco, taking the series 5-1, had returned in triumphant procession down the Hauraki Gulf, through the Waitemata Harbor to the Viaduct and its prize.

Oracle preceded it in more solemn transit, traveling at a funereal pace past the volcano Rangitoto and through a riotous spectator fleet of more than 1,000 boats.

Alinghi crossed the finish line Sunday eight seconds ahead of Oracle, but Oracle had a final, unwelcome duty to perform before it could complete its race and its series.

It had incurred a penalty during pre-start maneuvering more than two hours before and had carried that uncomfortable burden throughout the race.

When it discharged the penalty at the finish line, making a slow, weary and excursive turn through the racecourse, the margin in Alinghi's favour was 2:34.

"The 5-1 margin is not a true reflection of how close these teams were," Coutts said.

"You were all witness to the fact we were behind many, many times. Oracle are a tough team and this was a tough series."

Alinghi's crewmen belabored by nerves though the long and trying days of the final were able at last to relax. They clutched teammates in long embraces, showered each other with warm champagne, and some cried salt tears.

From Oracle there was only silence. Skipper Chris Dickson looked out from beneath the shadow of a cap brim crimped down heavily on a furze of receding blond hair.

The losing crew went through a post-race routine, stowing sails, dismantling rigging, which was now so often rehearsed that it was instinctive. It was a chore to be performed for the last time.

Spectator boats that had ringed the race course, kept beyond touching distance by a close escort of police patrol boats, pressed as near as they could.

At the Viaduct impatient crowds pressed four and five deep around the handrails of the Basin, craning to claim a glimpse of the barge on which the prizegiving was to take place.

There were Swiss flags in abundance and the clanking cow bells with which Alinghi have been welcomed home throughout the series.

Police worked their way among the crowd and police divers, leaving a silent trail of bubbles, scoured the Harbor's walls and floor.

The divers' presence was a remnant of the feeling that had risen against Coutts when he left Team New Zealand two years ago, which had grown in intensity when the challenger series began.

Threats had been made against Coutts and his family, other New Zealand sailors hired by Alinghi and their families by a group calling itself Teach The Traitors A Lesson.

Those threats had cast a shadow over the regatta in its final days and the large body of police Sunday reflected a fear that resentment towards Coutts might be matched with foul play.

But as Alinghi drew alongside the presentation platform and as crewmen leapt ashore, there were no catcalls or boos, only cheers.

Coutts held the trophy up and the crowd applauded enthusiastically. In a final act of celebration, Coutts and many of his crew threw themselves -- or were thrown -- into the harbor from a pontoon.

Later at a press conference, Oracle syndicate head Larry Ellison, who sank US$90 million into his campaign to see his team beaten in the straight, said he would challenge again. He paid Alinghi the night's most eloquent compliment.

"They are a great team and it's an honor to lose to them," he said.

"I'm surprised how well they sailed. They're like a fine Swiss watch with a few New Zealand parts."

Bertarelli longs to be one of the boys

AUCKLAND, New Zealand (AP) -- Ernesto Bertarelli invested US$70 million in his first America's Cup campaign to satisfy his love of sailing, his passion for the event and in answer to a more elemental need.

In his hunt for sport's oldest trophy, the owner of Europe's third-largest biotech company whose wealth, enlarged since inheritance, exceeds US$9 billion, has found some normalcy and acceptance.

Bertarelli's Alinghi team on Sunday beat Oracle 5-1 in a best of nine-race series to earn the right to challenge Team New Zealand for the America's Cup.

In sailing, Bertarelli, a 37-year-old married father of a two-year-old girl, has found access to a world from which wealth and the responsibilities of office would otherwise exclude him.

In sailing, if only fleetingly, he can be one of the boys.

"I just love sailing, having been brought up next to the water," Bertarelli said Sunday. "When I started my professional career I really looked for something to bring me down to earth."

"It allowed me to have a normal life because when you're locked up in corporate life it's very difficult to meet real people. So I started competitive sailing and I met a lot of people after that.

"Sailing brings me back to earth. I just enjoy the competition, enjoy people who share the same passion, and when I'm on board . . . I'm just another person.

"I'm just one of them and when I do something right I do it right and when I do something wrong I do it wrong. It just allows me to have a perspective on life. I just love it and that's why I do it."

Larry Ellison, who spent US$90 million on his Oracle campaign, has different reasons for challenging for the Cup.

His interest in the America's Cup grew after his participation in the 1998 Sydney to Hobart race in which six sailors died.

He once remarked "it's so cheap I can't understand why more people don't do it.

"I never heard of anyone ever being killed in an America's Cup," Ellison said Sunday. "I was sure I was going to die on the Hobart."

There was an exchange of admiration Sunday between Bertarelli and Ellison, whose syndicates are among the most heavily funded in America's Cup history.

"One thing I would like to say is that when I signed up for the America's Cup I didn't know Larry was going to be competing," Bertarelli said.

"I just learned that afterward and as soon as I learned it I said 'oh . . . this is going to be tough'.

"I don't think there is a tougher competitor than Larry and I know how he feels because I don't like to lose. I am the worst loser in the world."

 

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