Well what a lot of baloney! Team Alinghi boat builder, Bernard Cardis says it is 'Impossible to build a giant multihull in six months to compete in the 33rd America's Cup'. On a recent trip to the Philippines where the preferred form of transport and tourist joyrides are 'Bangkas' which are both motorised and sailing multihull craft. (See photos) There is nothing to difficult in the building techniques seeing the technology has been around for 100's of years. In fact they are often used for inter island trips and in Indonesia seen well out at sea in rough conditions catching flying fish for caviar.
If the Team Alinghi, designers Nigel Irens and Sebastien Schmidt do not have the experience nor a reliable data base they should take a leaf from the century old Asian drawing boards, usually on the back of a match box. Ample supplies of high tech mangrove roots, bamboo, tropical marine hardwood, fishing line and twine, all expertly crafted and tied together in a couple of weeks will be enough to produce a finely tuned vessel. In fact, probably for the price of one of the NYSSC sessions they could build 10 or more yachts so all the teams could race again and get 33rd America's Cup back on track. Meanwhile the yachting world has to sit back and watch two ego driven protagonists produce a very expensive, lengthy drawn out legal battle and ultimately a boring non event out of the sport we so love.More on these relatively low tech and extremely fast traditional craft can be found at: http://asianyachting.com/news/SandeqRace.htm
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