Boats add 'wow' factor to America's Cup

VALENCIA, Spain -- On a recent visit to his native Australia, America's Cup helmsman Jimmy Spithill squeezed in the time to get his pilot's license. It was a keen decision, considering that he has his hands on the wheel of one of the most mind-blowing sailboats ever built. When the 33rd America's Cup begins Monday in this Mediterranean port, weather-permitting, the boats will be the stars. And boy, can these beasts fly. Spithill will steer USA, a 90-by-90-foot trimaran representing American challenger BMW Oracle Racing of San Francisco, which is owned by software magnate Larry Ellison. It will try to wrest the oldest trophy in international sports away from two-time defending champion Alinghi of Switzerland, whose equally massive catamaran, Alinghi 5, could be steered by syndicate boss Ernesto Bertarelli or Ed Baird of St. Petersburg, Fla. They are the fastest, most powerful and downright extreme boats in the 159-year history of the America's Cup. When they hook into even the slightest breeze, their windward hulls fly off the water by up to 20 feet. Capable of sailing at up to three times the speed of the wind, USA has flirted with 50 knots. Conventional America's Cup yachts average 11 or 12 knots under good conditions. BMW Oracle Racing kept pushing the limits late last year when it added a radical wing sail, which towers 223 feet off the deck and is bigger than the wing of an Airbus A380, the world's biggest passenger airliner. The multihulls are the byproduct of a bitter, 2 1/2-year legal fight between Ellison and Bertarelli, two of the world's wealthiest men. Though convoluted and contentious, the court case has brought the stodgy old America's Cup decidedly into the 21st century. "I think it's probably the coolest part of this whole exercise, given that we've had to go through the courts and there's been that sort of, I guess, a downer," Spithill said. "But the real upside is that thing," he added, motioning toward the black-and-white, triple-hulled giant. "Whatever happens, this is always going to be something that'll be really cool to be a part of. OK, two teams are going to go out, and obviously we want to win, but the fact that this has been done, I think, is a real milestone in the sport." If the best-of-three series is as spectacular as the participants think it can be, the boats might just restore some dignity to a sport that has been sullied by a tit-for-tat squabble between the powerhouse sailing teams over rules, dates, the venue and practically everything else relating to the regatta. "Nobody is unhappy with what happened," Alinghi principal designer Rolf Vrolijk said frankly while admiring his graceful, white-hulled craft from a balcony at the team's headquarters on Thursday. "This is unique. It will never happen again." The genesis of the nasty spat between Ellison, the CEO of Oracle Corp., and Bertarelli, a biotech tycoon, was each side's interpretation of the Deed of Gift, the 1887 document that governs the America's Cup. Interestingly, it is that same 19th century document that provided the simple parameters for the two giant multihulls. The America's Cup normally is contested in sloops that are approximately 85 feet long, with several challengers competing for the right to face the defender. Because Alinghi and BMW Oracle Racing couldn't agree to rules for a conventional regatta, it defaulted to a rare head-to-head showdown, or Deed of Gift Match. According to the Deed, boats with one mast have one basic design limitation -- they can't be less than 44 feet or more than 90 feet on the waterline when the vessel is fully loaded. When BMW Oracle Racing issued its challenge in July 2007, it specified only a boat with a 90-foot load-waterline and a 90-foot beam, or width. Just in case the two sides couldn't come up with a mutually agreed class rule -- and they didn't -- the Americans weren't going to make the same mistake New Zealander Michael Fay made in 1988. He challenged Dennis Conner with a 90-foot monohull, and was routed by Conner's smaller, much faster catamaran off San Diego in the only other Deed of Gift Match in modern times. So when the Americans specified a 90-by-90-foot boat, everyone knew their intention was going to be a multihull. What kind was up to each team. The Americans chose a trimaran, feeling a triple-hulled boat would be a good, all-around platform for light air and flat water, and would have been OK had the Swiss picked a port that had stronger wind and waves. "Multihulls have been faster than monohulls since whenever the Tahitians strapped two logs together," said New Zealander Mike Drummond, BMW Oracle Racing's design director. "If it had been a Tahitian Empire instead of a British Empire, the world would have sailed multihulls." Alinghi chose a classic two-hulled boat based on a smaller catamaran Bertarelli had sailed on Lake Geneva. With their curving crossbeams, the boats resemble giant water bugs. Alinghi 5 is sleek. USA is bulkier. While USA's middle hull is 90 feet long, its outer hulls are more than 100 feet long. Alinghi 5's hulls are 110 feet long. But it's the 90 feet of load-waterline that is the important length. The scale of these boats is off the charts. Plop USA down on the infield at Yankee Stadium and it would cover each base and home plate. Lay the wing sail on an NFL field and it would stretch from one goal line to just past the opposite 26-yard line. Alinghi 5's trampoline, the mesh material that serves as the deck, is twice as big as a tennis court. Its mast is as tall as a 20-story building, and a crane is required to lift the furled, 1,300-pound mainsail off the boat each night. It takes 22 people to carry the furled, 660-pound headsail onto shore. USA already was a nautical beast when the syndicate added a radical wing sail late last year. It looks just like the wing of an airplane, with eight flaps on the trailing edge. Trimmed by a hydraulic system powered by an engine, it is expected to allow USA to accelerate quicker and maneuver easier than with a traditional soft sail rig. "Right from the beginning I knew that a wing was a possibility, not a probability," Drummond said. Conner used a wing on his catamaran in beating Fay in 1988. BMW Oracle Racing didn't have experience with wing sails, and didn't think there would be enough time to build one. "So when there was some delay because of court action and so forth, we did realize we did have time to look at it seriously," Drummond said. "We've spent a bit of time with lectures, Wing 101, on a blackboard," Drummond said. "I've really gotten into the flying thing," Spithill said, and he doesn't mean just in an airplane. These boats are dream projects for designers and engineers. There will be talk during the regatta of the lift coefficient of a wing and of the boats' power-to-weight ratio. But even the sailors can't ignore the simple "wow" factor. "To do it on this scale is something pretty amazing," said BMW Oracle Racing' skipper and CEO Russell Coutts, a three-time America's Cup winner. "I don't think we'll see the same thing again in our lifetimes." Built on the shores of Lake Geneva, Alinghi 5 is so big it had to be slung under a helicopter and flown over the Alps to Genoa, Italy, for initial sea trials. USA was sent from its base in San Diego to Valencia on the deck of a cargo ship. Baird, the helmsman for Alinghi's victory over Team New Zealand in 2007, said he tells his friends from Down Under that Alinghi 5 couldn't sail under the Sydney Harbor Bridge without breaking off the top of its mast. "It's just stunning," Baird said. "The boats are as wide as container ships. They blast along, all the time, at 20 to 30 to 40 knots. I mean, they just go fast. And that's in the most moderate conditions. It's quite a different experience."