US challengers BMW Oracle won the 33rd America’s Cup on Sunday, beating Swiss holders Alinghi in the second race to claim the best-of-three series 2-0 in a triumph of superior design and technology.
Software mogul Larry Ellison’s giant trimaran, featuring a towering wing-shaped sail, beat Alinghi by more than five minutes in the second race, leaving the Swiss boat in its wake after snatching the lead at the first mark.
Ellison steered his space-age boat back to the Spanish port of Valencia as night fell, hugging and congratulating his crew members.
“I’m enormously proud of this team,” said after raising the old silver trophy aloft, shouting “Valencia — muchas gracias.”
“It’s a fabulous experience,” the self-made billionaire said.
Ellison’s BMW Oracle team was beaten by Alinghi, backed by banking and biotechnology billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli, in the final of the 2003 challengers series for the America’s Cup, which the Swiss went on to win from holders New Zealand.
LEGAL WRANGLES
This year’s event came after more than two years of often bitter legal wrangles between Ellison and Bertarelli over the America’s Cup rules, battles which sometimes spilled over into sniping between two of the world’s richest men.
Bertarelli urged Ellison to drop a law suit, to be heard in New York on Feb. 25, over the origins of the sails on his boat, one in a long line of complaints between them which led to the best-of-three showdown without the usual challengers series.
A US team had not won sailing’s oldest and most prestigious prize since Bill Koch’s America3 beat Italy’s Il Moro de Venezia in 1992.
“I’m exceptionally proud to bring the America’s Cup back to the United States after a very long absence,” Ellison said.
It was a convincing victory for Ellison’s boat, a unique trimaran featuring a revolutionary wing-shaped mast and mainsail configuration the height of a 20-story building.
The carbon fibre and kevlar US boat hit speeds of up to 33 knots (61kph), incredibly more than four times the speed of the wind, as it surged away to lead by more than 2,100m.
MISERABLE RACE
Alinghi, with Bertarelli at the helm, finished 5 minutes 26 seconds behind after a miserable race. The Americans won Friday’s first race equally easily.
“This America’s Cup was about speed,” Bertarelli told reporters. “Congratulations to the BMW Oracle team, their boat was faster, no question.”
Bertarelli’s team made an error in pre-start manoeuvres — their second in the two races — incurring a penalty turn which had to be executed before they could finish.
The Swiss catamaran made up good ground to lead on the first leg of the race but were then blown off the water by BMW Oracle’s superior speed.
Alinghi had flown a protest flag during the race but later decided to withdraw their complaint.
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