Break time after all the hard grind

By JULIE ASH

Time off, and a baby, are high on Russell Coutts' list of priorities for the next few months.

The Alinghi skipper and the entire Swiss syndicate left for Geneva yesterday with the America's Cup firmly in hand.

When they arrive the celebrations, which are open to the public, will begin with a gigantic light and sound show.

For Switzerland it will be a chance to acknowledge the group of international sailors who won yachting's greatest prize and, in the process, created history twice.

Firstly, they bring the America's Cup back to Europe for the first time in 152 years, and secondly, they are the first team to claim the Auld Mug in their first attempt.

"I am not sure Alinghi's approach could work for other teams," Coutts said.

"I don't think it would have worked in the Team New Zealand I knew. We had quite a different group of people here.

"At Team New Zealand I knew the people for many, many years, whereas here I didn't know many of the people when we started and we had to adopt a different structure just to handle that."

Despite the perceptions, the local sailors did not impose Team New Zealand's ideas at Alinghi.

Coutts believes a key factor in his team's success was buying and modifying the old Swiss boat, SUI59, in 2001.

"It got the sailing and design teams working together very early and straight away we were able to identify our strengths and weaknesses in our organisational structure.

"We could have put two sailing teams on the water immediately but we thought sailing could take a backseat for a while so we could get our organisation up and running.

"It was important to learn about the people in our team.

"So in the early days we were probably behind other sailing teams but as an organisation we were developing rapidly.

"You saw the teams making organisational changes really late in the programme, even during the series, whereas Alinghi were very settled."

Having 15 nationalities within the team meant the designers were never short of an idea or two.

"I can tell you that I steered this boat totally different from some of the previous boats I was on.

"The way we trimmed the sails was different.

"A lot of those ideas came from people new to the programme."

So what now for the team who sailed through the cup regatta with ease - losing just three races out of 33?

"We have a strong team here at Alinghi and we will make it even stronger," said Coutts, who plans to continue in his role in management and as skipper of the syndicate.

"We will be putting some thought into how we can make the team better and it is a process that will probably go on for a few months.

"From a technical sense, the game just keeps evolving. I know if we were to design a boat today for these conditions it would be considerably faster than SUI64."

Coutts, with 14 wins, now holds the record for the most consecutive cup race victories as skipper, after overtaking Dennis Conner (13).

Brad Butterworth (tactician), Murray Jones (traveller), Warwick Fleury (mainsheet), Simon Daubney (genoa trim) and Dean Phipps all have 15 straight wins. They sailed the final race of Team New Zealand's 2000 defence when Coutts did not.

"I am thinking about going to the Etchell worlds," he said. "I'd like to do a few different events but not all match-racing events."

Coutts said he would return to live in New Zealand one day with his wife Jenny, their son Michael and their second child, due in May.

"As I have said before, I am a New Zealander but I am very proud of what's been achieved on Alinghi.

"Somehow or other over the last two years we developed into a formidable team.

That's what this game's all about."

Further reading: nzherald.co.nz/americascup