Barely a stitch separates sails

By JULIE ASH

Alinghi designer Patrick Mazuay expects there to be little difference between Alinghi and Team New Zealand in terms of sails.

Mazuay is one of two sail designers at Alinghi and said from what he had seen of the defenders they looked pretty impressive.

"They have worked a lot on square top mains and the genoas so I think we will be quite equal."

But while their sails may be similar their rigs are not. Alinghi have gone for the three-spreader Millennium rig, which Team New Zealand introduced in the last cup. Team New Zealand have surprised many by going back to a four spreader rig.

"Maybe they are looking for more stability, it is a trade off between windage and weight but they must think it is a gain," Mazuay said.

"We are very happy with the three spreader rig and I am not sure in the end there will be a difference between the two."

Mazuay reckoned Alinghi had created more than 150 sails through the campaign.

In both the challenger series and the America's Cup match, teams are only allowed to use 30 sails.

After the challenger series Alinghi were able to introduce 15 new sails but had to retain 15 from the challenger series.

Therefore it was important for the Swiss to save sails during the challenger series.

"The trick is still to have relatively fresh sails for the America's Cup. We were lucky to race the minimum amount of races we could. Our goal was to be in the top group and avoid repechage races and we managed to achieve that.

"We even managed to avoid a further two races when we forfeited a race against Prada and then they forfeited a race against us.

"If we had sailed in every repechage it would be much more difficult."

Mazuay is one of the men behind the pioneering square-top main.

The aim is to reduce drag.

"We felt that we had to get a particular sail shape and we worked hard to get that. We worked on different aspects of the mainsail and came up with the square top. It was a very long development and it took six months to create one mainsail. But when we hoisted it we realised that it was good.

"From that mainsail we worked a lot to refine the geometry and structure of the shape of the main."

Mazuay, who worked for the French challenge in 1995 and Fast 2000 in the last cup, said there has been plenty of innovation in the sail area.

"There has been a lot of development in regard to the geometry of the sails and the way the crew and hanging the sails.

"But most obvious is the fact that most of the teams have tried to increase their sail area and the efficiency of their main sail."

A day out from race Mazuay said the Swiss are raring to go.

"The feeling is great in Alinghi. We are impatient to go racing again. We wish we could go racing today as we feel we are ready."


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