– Jan 15th 2023
T he 2024 America’s Cup will be the Alinghi designer’s fourth edition since he started with Team New Zealand in 2007. He later worked with Luna Rossa, led the design of American Magic and now has the same role with Alinghi for the 2024 edition in Barcelona.
Seahorse: What led you to switch from American Magic to the Alinghi team?
Marcelo Botín: First because Alinghi is a European team and the next Cup will be in Barcelona. That makes it easier for us. The schedules, the cultural idiosyncrasies and the geographical proximity to our Santander office make life easier. Also, with Ernesto (Bertarelli) we have had a relationship for years. We have talked together many times about the Cup, about boats… By the previous edition he was already very interested in the process of choosing the boat, when there was talk that a big monohull would replace the part one-design catamarans. We were talking well before I joined American Magic.
SH: Did Alinghi being a ‘new’ team cause you concerns about joining?
MB: Absolutely not. For me the most important thing is to enjoy the three years of your life that you are going to dedicate to the project. There are many hours of work and if you are not happy it is very difficult. Finding a good environment and establishing that I organise my own design team were pivotal in my decision. Starting from scratch with a blank sheet is another stimulus. It is an advantage that they let you choose the people you want.
SH: What do you think of the current Alinghi compared to 2007?
MB: I don’t know what the team was like before; in Valencia I was with Team New Zealand and I didn’t pay much attention to the others. The current Alinghi is a totally new team, only keeping a small part of its previous team, plus it is associated with Red Bull which means two different cultures. Although Red Bull may not have been as involved in the America’s Cup they have a wealth of experience in high-tech motorsport teams.
SH: How do the synergies work with the Red Bull operation?
MB: I did not expect anything other than what it really is. Basically there are many fields in which they can help us – designing boats and cars are different things, but they have many points in common. The design tools are very similar, especially for aerodynamics and the calculation of structures, although the scales are different. Whenever we ask them for help they do it if they can.Of course there is also an area of learning that we must pass on to them because they are not used to boats, and that is a problem because it takes time and here things move very fast. Sometimes you have to decide if we can afford the extra time that their input will require.Some Red Bull engineers have come to work with us from the beginning, and with them this problem of understanding the boats is no longer an issue. Some of them are permanently at our base and some of them come and go.
On the other hand, Red Bull has put some very specialised testing facilities at our disposal, which is extremely helpful because it saves us time and money in setting something like this up from scratch.
SH: Plus of course there is Red Bull’s famous simulator technology…
MB: Yes, although sometimes the physics of a boat and a car have nothing to do with each other! Also we have to do many calculations in real time while they do this in a different way. But their technology and software do contribute a lot to our work. Also in other fields, such as systems and electronics where they are very advanced.
SH: What has surprised you the most about them?
MB: Above all the F1 team’s facilities in Milton Keynes. In sailing we would dream of having something similar. And unlike an AC team, they are always based there in one place. They come and go to the great competitions, but the team has a permanent headquarters there. Our bases mostly have to be itinerant depending on wherever the Cup is held.
SH: Will Alinghi design and build a 40ft prototype?
MB: Not at the moment. Instead we will have two AC40s that will be very useful to test solutions and also to allow our sailors to practise match racing in these types of boats.
SH: Were there any surprises on the AC75 which you bought early on from Team New Zealand?
MB: No… we really didn’t find anything we didn’t know about. We knew by then all about their systems and other things.
SH: Are the tricky winds here in Barcelona causing you a lot of headaches?
MB: Until now we have almost always had wind to sail out on the Barcelona course area for the Cup. But the waves introduce a new factor compared to previous editions – it is especially a challenge when the wind blows from the east for several days in a row. Some days it will become difficult to race. When the waves get to 1m high things get very complicated. The period of the wave here is only four seconds, plus these waves are very pointed. Then if the swell is coming from a different direction from the wind the challenge is even greater.
At the design level we already have to be successful working with the wind condition data for the venue if we are to achieve a competitive boat across the entire range of conditions. And now we have to bring into the equation the new unknown of the waves – which we never faced before. The temptation always is to optimise the boat for the most frequent conditions, and then learn to sail it so as to cope when conditions move outside this range for which the boat was targeted… In the AC75 design process it also seems particularly important to me that the systems should work perfectly in responding to the inputs of the sailors, since sailing with waves is already more difficult for them than in Auckland.
SH: Did I see one video where you were sailing with the two foils in and then out the water…?
MB: (Laughing) It would be during the pre or post-manoeuvre… Don’t forget that this is a new crew learning to sail these boats, and on some days with big waves things take longer. It is just a matter of time for the crew to get used to it and perfect both the manoeuvres and their straightline sailing. The same thing happened to us at American Magic, it is a learning process that we must come out the other side of. It is a problem of hours – doing it is relatively easy, what is difficult is doing it very well every time. It’s like golf: you have to have a good swing but you must be consistent every time you hit the ball.
SH: What about the AC75 rule changes, with lighter boats and bigger foils…?
MB: The boat will fly sooner and in this sense our work is easier. The larger size of the new foils does drive some important design changes compared to before. The boats will not be slower anywhere, but above all we will avoid the embarrassment of boats ‘racing’ off their foils. In Auckland that was really quite pathetic… and painful to watch.
