It can be done without Russell Coutts. Alinghi proved this impressively with its superior victory in the first serious clash between all twelve America's Cup teams. The Swiss won the final race against Luna Rossa by a large margin today, although they could have afforded to lose to win the overall title.
In last year's show races against BMW Oracle, the team gave the impression that it was losing its lead. But Jochen Schümann, whose position at Alinghi is said to have become even stronger since the departure of Coutts, has put together a changed but powerful team for Valencia.
Ernesto Bertarelli had to give up his position as navigator to Juan Vila. The boss was not on board for the first races and was also not used in the important prestige race against BMW Oracle. After that, he was seen in the runner/grinder position. In addition, the Spanish 470 Olympic champion Jordi Calafat has taken over the position on the traveller from the experienced Murray Jones.
Another change was the use of SUI 75, a newer boat that was supposed to be used in the 2003 Americas Cup final but had not yet sailed in an official race. Rolf Vrolijk had even equipped it in Auckland with a Hula hull appendage like the New Zealanders had for testing purposes. Valencia has shown that the Hamburg-based Alinghi chief designer has not been sitting on his hands since winning the Cup.
The New Zealanders in particular were impressed by the performance of the SUI 75, with tactician Terry Hutchinson telling online magazine The Daily Sail: "Alinghi shows better height than we do, especially at 14 to 16 knots ... They already had something in the SUI 64 that we don't have. And the 75 has also been tuned in this direction. She might even be a bit faster in light winds."
The Italians from Luna Rossa also had to realise this today in the last race of the match race series. James Spithill left the tactically better right-hand side of the start line to Peter Holmberg almost without a fight, passing the line a little faster, but would have had to gain more than a boat length to leeward of Alinghi to be able to tack ahead of the Swiss. They clearly lost the speed race on the left-hand side and were then unable to overtake. The race was lost by one minute.
Team New Zealand narrowly won the second exciting race of the heavyweights after a courageous start against BMW Oracle. Dean Barker was directed to the left-hand side by his strategy team after the start, made a strong left-hand turn and was 32 seconds ahead at the windward mark. After that, the Americans were constantly catching up, but the race was lost by 17 seconds and with it second place overall.
The most exciting race of the day was surprisingly the Franco-Chinese team with Mascalzone Latino. Despite clearly losing the start, CHN 69, which had not started the second race of the day yesterday due to a broken boom, overtook the Italians shortly before the windward mark after a fierce tacking duel and led by 36 seconds. At the end of the second cross, Team China then misjudged the starboard layline to the windward mark. They sailed too high and thus took a diversion that brought the Italians within 10 seconds. On the final downwind course, Mascalzone overtook Latino and won by 29 seconds.
The German race, on the other hand, was rather unspectacular. At the beginning of the pre-start, Jesper Bank made a virtue of necessity. Until now, he had always had problems stopping the boat effectively during the dial-up. So this time he tacked quickly at the first encounter, where he had to dodge the wind from port, and picked up speed again. That was enough to enable him to tack off the bow of +39 and get the safe right side of the starting box.
However, he was then unable to put enough pressure on the Italians at the start to get the right-hand side. He started downwind of the British helmsman Ian Percy and had to engage in a speed race on the left-hand side. This showed that the German boat was no match for the former SUI 59 from Alinghi. Although the Italians had to replace a broken rudder from the pre-start of yesterday afternoon's race, this obviously did not affect their speed. They won by a margin of 56 seconds.
The duel between Sweden and Spain with Karol Jablonski at the wheel provided more excitement. Although the German-Polish driver managed to inflict a penalty on Magnus Holmberg in the pre-start phase when he was too close to him, the start was lost by 7 seconds. That was enough for the Swedes to build up a sufficient lead. They turned their penalty circle, which lasts around 35 seconds, on the finish line and crossed the finish line 10 seconds ahead of their opponents.
Final result
1st Alinghi, 11 wins
2. Emirates Team New Zealand, 10 wins
3. BMW Oracle Racing, 9 victories
4. Luna Rossa, 8 victories
5. Victory Challenge, 6 wins
6th Desafio Espaniol, 6 wins
7. K-Challenge, 4 victories
8th Mascalzone Latino Capitalia Team, 4 wins
9th + 39 Challenge, 4 wins
10th United Internet Team Germany, 3 wins
11th China Team, 1 win
12th Team Shosholoza, 0 wins
