Dust settling

Tactician and Vice President Brad Butterworth brings us up to date with a post-Coutts Alinghi

Last summer the supposedly unrufflable form of the Swiss America's Cup winner, Alinghi, was shaken to its core as the dispute between Russell Coutts and Ernesto Bertarelli came to a head. This rumbled on until just three weeks ago when an 'amicable settlement' was announced rumoured to have been resolved by a substantial payment by Bertarelli to his former skipper.

To replace Coutts on board, Peter Holmberg swiftly stepped into the breach helming SUI64 for last year's Acts and at the end of November his skills behind the wheel were augmented by the appointment of former Match Race World Champion and Cup skipper Ed Baird to the team.

However Coutts' role within Alinghi was much more wide reaching than merely being skipper including general management of the team and his unique skills to act as the interface between the sailing and design teams has been almost irreplacable.

Since Coutts' departure some of his management role has fallen squarely on the shoulders of his loyal right hand man and tactician Brad Butterworth. "I never used to have a role so it’s good…or I think it is bad actually!" jokes the amiable Kiwi and Cup veteran.

The current management structure within Alinghi sees Ernesto Bertarelli as President, Butterworth as Vice-President with joint Managing Directors (their official titles are Joint General Managers) in Patrick Magyar, responsible for the sponsorship, marketing and business side and Grant Simmer who runs the design side. Butterworth continues: "On the sailing side Grant and I share the responsibility. He co-ordinates the design and my responsibility is the sailing side. Then we have a pretty strong group with Jochen [Schuemann], who runs the day-to-day co-ordination of the sailing team, on shore we have Michel Marie who runs the boat building side and Tim Gurr the day to day management, making sure the boats work all the time."

On board Butterworth continues as perhaps the world's most capped and, in Cup terms, most successful tactician. "Not much has changed for me in terms of my different responsibilities with the rules and the strategy," he says.

Following his time alongside Coutts running Team New Zealand's defence in 2000 Butterworth is no stranger to Alinghi's present position as Defender but says from his team's perspective the game has changed considerably, partly for the better, partly for the worse. Previously, for example, the defender had little opportunity to race the Challengers before the Cup itself. This time with Alinghi participating in all the Acts they will have a very good idea of whether or not they're on the pace.

"It is difficult to work out whether the rest of the challengers have embraced the new way of doing it, where all the teams are involved as long as possible and then the Challengers branch out and do the Louis Vuitton over those three months. I don't think it changes a hell of a lot for the defender." The Challengers will still benefit from sharpening their performance in the Louis Vuitton series.

The Challenger Commission and America's Cup Management at some stage soon will finalise how the points scoring system will work for the Acts prior to the Louis Vuitton series. Regardless of whether the tally from the Acts goes to form a seeding system for the Louis Vuitton series for the Challengers or something more significant, Alinghi's results in the Acts will simply be removed from the scoring.

Regardless of whether the Defender's participation in the Acts is good or bad for the Challengers what is undeniable is the Acts being of major benefit to the sponsors, reasons Butterworth. "Really if you look at it from a view of where does it go, it is pretty hard for this part of the sport to grow if all the teams aren’t actually sailing. You don’t have much payback for your sponsors if you are just waiting for those nine races. From my point of view as a sailor we just want to race the other teams, because there is a high standard and it is good fun."

The Acts have made the America's Cup experience more enjoyable for the teams. The alternative without their providing six weeks of racing each year is that the teams return to mind-numbing windward-leeward speed runs day in day out from now until 2007. "When I was with Team New Zealand in 2000, we basically just sailed on our own and in the end it was a detriment to the challengers. You can look at it two ways," says Butterworth. Conversely not lining up with the Challengers beforehand was clearly to the detriment of Team New Zealand three years later.

Another significant difference is in the role of ACM. Whereas in past Cups there have been an independent Race Committees for the Louis Vuitton challenger series and the America's Cup regatta itself, this time ACM are running the whole show. According to Butterworth Alinghi are effectively just another team, it just so happens they are the Defender. "It doesn't work in our favour. I think that the Defender has given up a lot to have the regatta structure the way it is.

"But in the end you get sick of the moaning. Like last time - Team New Zealand ran the regatta in the old fashioned way - we were precluded from sailing on the Cup course, not that it mattered so much because we all grew up there... This time there is none of that. There won’t be any home court advantage."

In terms of personnel at Alinghi the most significant development has been bringing Baird on board. "It is good. We have got a pretty strong helming team of Ed and Peter Holmberg and Jochen Schuemann. We have three pretty capable guys to steer the yacht," says Butterworth.

While Holmberg steered SUI64 in 2004, his position at the helm is not assured going forwards. "It is up for grabs," says Butterworth. "What’s for sure is that the best guy will sail the boat. But at the moment we are spoiled for choice. Both are pretty handy at it..."

As usual Alinghi will be running a squad system and this will also extend towards those at the back of the boat. "We’ll try and mix it around," says Butterworth. "We want to try and lift the whole group, so that is part of the deal. In truth, we’ve done that in just about all the campaigns we’ve done."

Butterworth says they are still in the market for three new crew - another tactician, a grinder plus one other. "We will be trying out different people over the next year. If we find one we’ll just pop them in."

Compared to the last Cup the cycle this time is a year longer and Butterworth reckons they will sail around twice the number of hours on the water than they did last time. Why? "Because we are set up so early. Last time it was a three year hiatus. This time it is four years and we set up here with over two years to go. We didn’t get to Auckland until just over a year out."

But that seemed to work okay... "Yes, but the other teams are here and Prada and Oracle are here and they are all pushing hard."

Yesterday out on the water off Valencia sponsors and press, including thedailysail were given an opportunity to see SUI64 and 75 training, Baird at the helm of one, Holmberg the other. Over the last few months both have been converted to Version 5 of the America's Cup class rule, the work carried out in Valencia on 64 while 75 was returned to Decision in Switzerland for some "additional mods".

"The boats are both in version 5 but the rigs aren’t at the moment," says Butterworth. "We are sailing along not street legal yet, but we are sailing at the new weight."

Aside from a slight logo change from Infonet to BT Infonet (BT recently acquired Infonet) we were hard pressed to tell the difference between SUI64 version 4 and SUI64 version 5. We were not alone - this was the case for most of the sailing team too...

Butterworth says the performance difference is not that noticable either. "Downwind they are a bit quicker obviously, because they have got a bit more sail area and they are a bit lighter. But upwind? No." He adds that when before the boats used to semi-get going downwind in around 22-3 knots of wind, now they only need perhaps 18 knots.

So each team has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars converting their boats to create a minimal performance gain... "People were looking to change it, but like everything you do, in consensus change becomes not a change," says Butterworth. He admits though that "they will be better for the conditions here. But the problem you face when you are writing the rule or trying to decide on the boats that you use is that there are a whole bunch of old boats out there and if you just do a full change to another version [a new rule], the owners of those boats [the previous type] tend to turn their back on you."

In terms of new technology Butterworth reckons that we won't see too much appearing in 2005. Teams are more likely to show their hands when they launch their new Version 5 boats in 2006. "The truth is when the new boats come out we’ll find out what differences there are. At the moment we are really trying to get our boats going as fast as they can in this version. Then there are a series of modifications which will happen through the year.

"There are some nice inventions that are coming along. All the boats have got flippers (on the spreader tips) now and use them to try and support the leech of their roached jib. And now they have inflatable battens going in on these sails, or soft battens and kite technology. It is all good stuff if you make them work."

Technology in the rig has also been improved under the new rule amendment with a higher modulus carbon allowed in their construction making for a lighter, stiffer spar.

In terms of the Challenger Commission's unhappiness over ACM's implimentation of a weather program that can be used jointed by all the teams, Butterworth says he is mystified. "It is bit like going back in time. What we were trying to do was get away from having 30 weather boats out on the race course on any given day and to try and consolidate into having a mutual system that we could all benefit from. It was agreed in the beginning and they have now changed their mind. I don’t know what the actual focus is within that group that they have voiced their disapproval over the way it has been set up even though they have been in liaison over the way it has been set up since day one. In the end, when you win it you have got to make some decisions and I still think that was a good one. They are going to have to stop moaning and get on with it..."

Butterworth cites this as an example of one of his chief complaints of the new America's Cup era. "This time more than ever that has been one of the big draw backs of the way that the teams have been structured. There are a lot more consultants and lawyers slowing the processes down, instead of having the decision makers at the meetings."

He cites another example as the firing of design guru Tom Schnackenberg from Emirates Team New Zealand. "I rang up Coutts and had a laugh with him. I said ‘it’s not longer ‘loyal’, it’s legal’. The funny thing is that Tom’s got a pretty good handle on 1979 all the way. The thing about this game is a lot of the ideas aren’t new. They’re just rejigged old ideas."

So you might be putting in the call to him? "We’ve talked to him. He has to free himself of the civil contract he’s got and then he has a problem with the Protocol. Over here if you’re fired you can go work wherever you want."

Watch this space....