Switzerland may be better known for producing skiing champions than high-seas adventurers but locals are hoping that Swiss money and technology can bring the coveted America's Cup to this landlocked Alpine land.
In the 152-year history of the America's Cup the trophy has never ended up in Europe but now a top crew assembled by billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli find themselves confronting holders New Zealand in sailing's premier event starting on Feb. 15.
Victory for Switzerland's Alinghi syndicate would raise the prospect of an America's Cup defense in the Mediterranean next time.
PHOTO: AFP
"It shows we can take on big challenges, beyond the image of tourism and chocolate," said Patrick Aebischer, president of the Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), a polytechnical university in Lausanne which was official scientific advisor to the Alinghi team.
"Switzerland is in the avant-garde of developing technology like numeric simulation," Aebischer said, referring to computer simulations on the hull and sail shapes which were part of two years' worth of tests.
Bankrolling
Bertarelli, a 37-year-old billionaire, has bankrolled the lion's share of Alinghi's bid.
The cost, which he estimated at its September 2000 launch at 75 million Swiss francs (US$54.86 million), is believed to have soared since, with some reports estimating it at US$85 million.
Alinghi gained a berth in the nine-race series final by beating Oracle BMW Racing 5-1 in the Louis Vuitton challengers' series off Auckland last month, capsizing the American dream of reclaiming the title.
Bertarelli, chief executive of Europe's biggest biotechnology firm Serono, flew home last week, saying he needed a break from an "aggressive press campaign" in New Zealand where feelings ran high over the move to Alinghi of former Team New Zealand skipper Russell Coutts and tactician Brad Butterworth who won the America's Cup in 1995 and successfully defended it in 2000.
"I needed to get some positive vibrations from our country. This has been a breath of fresh air that I'll bring back to my colleagues," Bertarelli told reporters on his return trip to Geneva.
An accomplished yachtsman and Alinghi's navigator, Bertarelli has been keeping tabs on his employees back in Switzerland by e-mail, according to company sources.
Despite a 12-hour time difference, many Serono employees in Geneva watched Alinghi breeze to victory on a large screen in the cafeteria.
"Everybody at Serono is very happy that Alinghi has gotten so far. But it's a funny feeling to be working and think that the boss is not there" said a company source at Geneva headquarters.
The Italian-born Bertarelli, who dreamed up the name Alinghi, was named Switzerland's wealthiest man in 2001 by monthly magazine Bilan.
Bertarelli fell to fourth place last year after his fortune was nearly halved to an estimated seven to eight billion Swiss francs.
He is the biggest shareholder in Serono, whose shares dived with other biotech stocks last year.
The company, which makes fertility drugs and growth hormones, was started by his late father and grandfather and now employs some 4,550 staff in 45 countries.
Bertarelli, a handsome 37-year-old Harvard Business School graduate, also sits on the board of Switzerland's biggest bank UBS, which is a major Alinghi sponsor along with Swiss watchmaker Audemars Piguet.
The New Zealand defenders are pinning their hopes on the "Hula", a hull appendage designed to boost speed by increasing the boat's waterline length and volume.
The innovation has caused a stir but has yet to be tested in serious competition.
Secret weapon
Alinghi also tested an appendage on their second boat, SUI 75, but said they would continue to race with the winning SUI 64.
Four EPFL laboratories, 15 scientists and 20 students conducted multiple stress tests on carbon fibre used in the hull and mast, calculating the effects of wind, waves and water pressure, EPFL spokesman Nicolas Henchoz said.
EPFL also contributed to the world's first non-stop round-the-world balloon trip by Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard and space flights of Swiss astronaut Claude Nicollier.
Bertarelli said last month that if Alinghi won the trophy he would probably move sailing's top event to the Mediterranean or the Atlantic.
He named Naples, Barcelona, Palma de Majorca and Saint Tropez as possibilities, as well as Lisbon. Sete in France, where Alinghi's crew trained, had made an offer.
"We have started to think about it. The first criteria is the weather, then the logistics," Bertarelli told reporters on his recent visit.
"If we bring the event to Europe it has to be done on the large scale that a great sporting festival deserves."
Alinghi executive director Michel Bonnefous, interviewed in Auckland, ruled out holding the regatta at home, saying that both winds and dock space were inadequate.
The Yacht Club of Geneva organizes the annual "Bol d'Or" race, drawing some 600 boats for Europe's largest lake regatta which Bertarelli has won four times.
Bleary-eyed fans among its 3,000 members watched the Louis Vuitton Cup in the middle of the night at the posh club founded in 1872, where they will gather again for the final.
Landlubbers
"If Alinghi wins, it is the club which is the official holder.
"The question of where to hold the next America's Cup will be settled between the club and syndicate by mutual agreement," Alec Tournier, club secretary-general, told Reuters.
"The Deed of Gift requires holding the event at sea or an arm of the sea. It would take years of litigation to change it," he added, referring to the original America's Cup rules.
Swiss radio said after the Louis Vuitton win that if Alinghi clinched the America's Cup, "it would represent something incredible for a country deprived of seas or oceans."
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