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The 33rd America’s Cup is set to begin in Spain on Monday with a multihull duel pitting US side Oracle against Swiss defenders Alinghi which will feature the largest and fastest boats ever used in the 159-year history of the sailing race.
Oracle is looking to bring the Cup back to the United States for the first time in 15 years in their best-of-three face-off against Alinghi, which in 2003 became the first European winner of sailing’s oldest and most prestigious trophy at its first attempt.
The race has traditionally been run in monohulls but this year for the first time both sides will sail multihulls which can sail at three times the speed of the wind.
Alinghi’s catamaran, the Alinghi 5, features a mast that is as tall as a 17-storey building and a beam the equivalent of two tennis courts side by side.
It was so large that it had to be flown from Switzerland, where it was built, to Italy for initial sea trials under a helicopter.
Oracle’s trimaran, the USA, has a solid vertical wing of 68 metres, more than twice the length of the wing of a Boeing 747, which is thought to give it an edge over Alinghi during strong winds.
The USA was sent from its base in San Diego on the deck of a cargo ship.
Oracle boss Larry Ellison, the 65-year-old head of software giant Oracle Corp., said this would be an “extreme” version of the America’s Cup.
“These two boats are the fastest sailboats that have ever been built and they’re going to match off one against the other. I think it’s going to be the greatest spectacle in sailing history and I’m very proud to be a part of it,” he told a news conference on Friday.
The first race is scheduled to begin off valencia at 10am (1800 AEDT) on Monday with subsequent races set for Wednesday and Friday.
The first and third races will be sailed over a 40-nautical-mile windward-leeward course. The second race is a 39-mile triangle.
“Everytime you go to battle, you have to feel nervous. Anytime I have gone casually into anything I have ever done, I was not my best,” Alinghi boss Ernesto Bertarelli said when asked how he felt before the first race.
The 44-year-old Swiss biotech mogul and Ellison have been embroiled in a bitter legal conflict since Alinghi won the last Cup in Valencia in 2007.
The two sides have sparred over the rules, dates and location of the event.
Oracle accused the Swiss syndicate of trying to bend the rules in its favour for the 33rd edition. Alinghi has charged Oracle is seeking to win the Cup in the court rather than on the water.
Regardless of which team wins, the 33rd Cup will likely be tied up in court long after it ends, just as in 1988 when the United States beat New Zealand in a similar one-on-one grudge match off the coast of San Diego.
In December Oracle accused Alinghi of infringing nationality rules by allegedly using US-made sails for its catamaran, something the Swiss side denies.
In 1988 the revolutionary US catamaran Stars and Stripes – sporting an early version of Oracle’s hard-wing sail in representation of the San Diego Yacht Club – beat New Zealand’s much larger KZ-1 monohull.
The win was contested over the next two years until the New York Court of Appeals in April 1990 decided that the victory stood.
What is now sailing’s most prestigious trophy was first contested around the Isle of Wight in southern England in 1851. It was renamed after the first yacht to win the trophy, the schooner America.
The trophy remained in the hands of the New York Yacht Club of the United States from 1852 until 1983 when the Cup was won by the challenger, Australia II, ending the longest winning streak in the history of sport.
It finally returned to Europe after Alinghi beat Team New Zealand 5-0 off Auckland in 2003, a trophy they successfully defended in Valencia in 2007.
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