Yachting: Tearful Swiss bid Cup goodbye

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

Veteran skipper Marc Pajot shed tears yesterday when he told his Swiss crew their America's Cup campaign was over.

Frenchman Pajot had tried desperately for two days to keep the beleaguered Swiss challenge alive after Be Happy's mast snapped on Friday.

But at midnight on Saturday, the bosses of the Fast2000 syndicate decided it was time to call it quits.

Their only mast, lying in three pieces inside the Swiss shed, could not be fixed in time for the boat to finish the third round of the Louis Vuitton Cup.

Pajot, in his fourth Cup campaign, waited until 10 am yesterday to call all the crew together and tell them they were going home.

"Today was not a very happy day," he said.

"It was very emotional, now the game is over for us."

The unhappy crew had a barbecue together before starting to pack up the base in the Cup village.

It will take a week before the site is emptied and the team disperse.

But Be Happy, the bizarre two-keeled boat that was almost never finished, will stay on in Auckland, at least until the Cup is over.

Pajot said the syndicate wanted to wait and see where the next Cup would be raced before finding a new home for the yellow boat.

It was Switzerland's first attempt at an America's Cup, but the Yacht Club de Morges wants to enter the next event, despite the hardships they encountered in their debut.

"This campaign has been a lot harder than I imagined," said Pajot.

"We have had to face a lot of difficulties. But as professionals we have to look to the future."

The design team admitted that in hindsight, they would have been better off building two masts instead of two keels for the boat.

But Peter van Oosanen, who helped create Australia II's winning winged keel in 1983, still believes his team may have made the technological breakthrough for future Cup designs.

"We had manoeuvrability problems," he said.

"But we feel we might be on the verge of something that could be a prototype of a new concept.

"We've had 25 e-mails from designers all around the world who expressed their admiration for what we attempted.

"When you're a small group in the America's Cup you've got to come up with an edge somewhere else."

The Swiss were dogged by financial woes since they began in earnest two years ago - construction of the boat stopped, a designer walked out and last week the crew threatened to leave.

But Pajot said there would be enough money to pay off all their expenses in Auckland before they pack up and ship out.