Weather or Not

Two more days of nada de nada? Slide courtesy of the BBC Weather Centre.

Bonnefous Interview

A long interview with ACM CEO Michel Bonnefous, Alinghi general manager during the last Cup, by the IHT's Christopher Clary, is featured in today's New York Times and is well worth the read....

Q. & A.
A Conversation With Michel Bonnefous

Published: April 14, 2007

Michel Bonnefous was general manager of the winning team during the last America’s Cup, but he is trying to project neutrality this time.

Bonnefous has spent the last three years with his wife and three young sons in Valencia, Spain.

Shortly after the Swiss and their mercenaries from New Zealand swept the home team in Auckland, Bonnefous was named president of America’s Cup Management with the backing of his boyhood friend Ernesto Bertarelli, the Swiss billionaire who remains head of Alinghi and part of its crew.

While past Cups have had separate organizing bodies for the challenger trials and the America’s Cup, Bertarelli and his principal rival Larry Ellison believed it needed just one. Their answer was America’s Cup Management (ACM). Bonnefous, with his close-cropped hair, thin-framed glasses and casual manner, has spent the last three years with his wife and three young sons in Valencia, Spain, the city he helped select as the site of these races, which are being held in European waters for the first time in 156 years.

Bonnefous presides over the biggest organizational budget in the event’s history, and last month in his unpretentious office with a view of the transformed port, he discussed the present and future of the competition with Christoper Clarey of The New York Times.

Excerpts from that interview:

CLAREY: What are your feelings as you look at the new bases and the new marinas?

BONNEFOUS: Even before we won with Alinghi, we sat down with a very small group and isolated ourselves and developed a kind of blueprint for what the organization would be like in case of victory. We put it away in a locker and then took it back out when we were in the final of the America’s Cup.

Now this is a reality, and it’s very close to the initial project we imagined four years ago, so that’s pretty interesting to see that we have more or less what we wanted. It’s great to see a big project coming through and changing a city. That’s new for the America’s Cup, using the event that way. It has been done somewhat in the past, but not really organized to this degree. This is truly an Olympic-style project.

CLAREY: What do you think will define this Cup in Valencia?

BONNEFOUS: There are two aspects for me: the social aspect and the sports aspect. Socially, this will definitely feel Spanish. When you have 60,000 or 100,000 people at 9 p.m. and all the bars open and there is a lot of life, you’re going to know you’re in Spain. We have made efforts to try to create a social environment around the competition that will be attractive and will work. I think this is important for the America’s Cup.

The other side is the sports event. And for this edition what I hope will be the defining element is that the teams are certainly going to be extremely close and that’s the effect of the Acts we had leading up to the Cup. In the previous Vuitton Cups, an underdog team would have the opportunity to sail two times against Alinghi and two times against Oracle, so that underdog team would do six races against top teams in the whole campaign.

But with this new format, the underdogs have sailed I don’t know how many races against the top teams. When you examine the previous Vuitton Cups, at the end the underdogs were very close to the others but only by the end after they had improved over three months of competitions. But this time I’m convinced we will see closer racing. I won’t say the favorites won’t end up the winners, because they have high operational capacities. But the underdogs this time are starting on a much higher level, and I think that’s what’s going to be great. The other aspect is that we have been using this class of America’s Cup boats for five editions now, so that also will make the boats closer.

CLAREY: There are skeptics, but do you feel you’ve been able to change the chip from Alinghi team member to America’s Cup Management?

BONNEFOUS: I’ve been able to change the mentality totally, because it’s not that difficult and because it’s my job. Alinghi was one approach. It’s totally different here, but for me this is the same kind of job, organizing and problem solving. I stay pretty objective. I like Alinghi, because we created it, but it doesn’t mean the decisions we take now with ACM are not fair. We can take fair decisions but still be a bit emotionally attached.

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Michel Bonnefous (SUI, right) holding the Cup after Alinghi's historic win at Auckland in 2003, with skipper Russell Coutts (NZL, left) and team owner and sailing team member Ernesto Bertarelli (SUI, center).

Upwardly Mobile Mayoress

From today's Valencia Life newsletter:

Valencia Mayoress Rita Barberá could hardly conceal her surprise yesterday after the influential magazine Elle placed her amongst the most important feminine movers and shakers in the world. The Magazine found that amongst the most influential women in the world were Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, Mrs Barberá, Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega, the Deputy Prime Minister, and Esperanza Aguirre, the President of the Madrid Community.

Six Days in April

ACM estimates that during the six days of Act 13 about a quarter of a million people came to the America's Cup Park to witness the events. Records were beaten on Friday when 63,000 people came to see the racing and admire the yachts, support boats and spectator boats as they traversed the canal to and from the Port America's Cup.


"A rising tide lifts all boats."

Politics as Usual

After three years of this harangue, most Cup veterans are giving fiesty Mayoress Rita Barbera a lot of credit for what has been accomplised in Valencia for the America's Cup despite the antipathy of the Central Government and current ruling party. From this morning's Valencia Life newsletter....

AMERICAS CUP:
A GENTLE REMINDER

After the outburst by Jordi Sevilla, the Minister of Public Administrations over what could happen to the Valencia 2007 Consortium after the Americas Cup Races this year, Valencia Mayoress Rita Barbera stated that she considered these statements ‘light’. She also reminded the Minister that the ownership of Valencia Port was with the Town Hall and not with the central government ‘ and this exists through several notarised documents’. She also stated that she did not want to ‘put more wood on the fire’ and suggested that the Minister avoids these types of declarations in future ‘because what we are looking at is the most important worldwide event that has ever been staged in Valencia and we must ensure that we offer the world the unity and illusions that we all have for the event’. She also suggested that Mr. Sevilla ‘become less angry and raise a glass to toast to the success of the event’. Meanwhile Vicente Rambla, the Spokesman for the Valencian Government accused the Madrid Government of ‘trying to destabilize the Americas Cup event’. He also stated that it was Mr. Sevilla who signed the act of constitution of the Consortium, and despite this the Madrid Government has ‘not come through with a single penny’ to support the event. He added that ‘many other locations in the world would love to stage a competition of this sort, and it is a shame that certain people do not think the same way as we do over the matter’.

Formerly the Dársena Interior, the Port America's Cup has come a long way, baby, since we first visited Valencia in November of 2003. The North (main) racing area is in the background, only a ten minute tow from the team bases, and allowing spectators to see the racing from the breakwater and Malvarossa Beach (upper left), albeit at a distance. With Act 13 beginning in less than a week, the Super Yacht Dock (T-dock, center) is beginning to fill up with large team spectator and private yachts. Aside from 53 race committee vessels, the outer marinas appear, so far, to have less uptake. (File photo.)



A more recent photo by ACM/Carlo Borlenghi looking the other direction, from above the America's Cup Park North (foreground, center) and showing the rapidly developing America's Cup Park South (left along the Canal). They have built it. Will they come?

Valencia Crónica #67

Issue #67 of Valencia Crónica is now available here. This is one of editor Bridget Baker's best issues ever -- packed with info on Las Fallas and other events in and around Valencia and the Cup.

"Well done" to Bridget (who is from NZL, husband Ian "Box" Baker is with BMW ORACLE Racing) and all her collaborator-contributors. Valencia Crónica is another testament to the unprecedented level of inter-team cooperation we see in many aspects AC32, and helping to make this the most family-friendly Cup in recent memory if not ever.

The usual fine print.... Bridget issues VC approximately every other week, and it is intended solely for AC 32 team members and their families. Accordingly, VC is password-protected to ensure the privacy of contributors' contact info.

To obtain the password, or to be added to the email distribution list for Crónica, please write Bridget at valenciacronicaspain [at] yahoo [dot] co [dot] nz. Over 500 families are now receiving VC by email.

Breeze On

Yes, it was a bit windy in VLC the past couple days. The breeze came on Wednesday afternoon and blew hard for 36 hours. Related story and another scary pic on today's Valencia Sailing. For most teams, yesterday became a meeting and maintenance day. Today (Friday) looks like a great sailing day, albeit a bit rough from the residual seas.



Speaking of, John Cutler's (NZL, Desafío Español) working party of rules gurus took advantage of yesterday's blow out to try to resolve, once and for all, the remaining racing rules issues. No cigar, but they're getting close. On Monday the CC agreed a two week extension, to 15 March, of the deadline for finalization of all Umpire Calls and Q&A's.

"Biggest Security Presence Ever"

From today's Valencia Life newsletter....

AMERICAS CUP
BEEFING UP SECURITY

The security measures for the Americas Cup races were announced yesterday, and these envisage some 2,000 policemen on almost constant watch. 1,500 of these will be from the national police, The Guardia Civil and the Maritime Security services, whilst the remaining five hundred would be from the Municipal police force. The new force will have 24 boats, five helicopters and over two hundred CCTV cameras that will serve to create a security area around Valencia Port. The Socialist government has called the operation ‘the biggest security presence ever realised for this sort of event’.

Eye in the Sky

Yesterday afternoon this chopper flew very low over the Port America's Cup for the better part of an hour, including directly overhead of Challengers' ACC yachts. Does anyone know to whom this heli belongs? Or who was in it and what they were doing? Only Challengers were out sailing yesterday. Note the camera pod or pods on the underbody. The Challenger Commission chair, Alessandra Pandarese, has asked ACM to investigate.

More Non-Stops to VLC

This good news for our European friends and fans, from today's Valencia Life email newsletter....

MORE FLIGHTS

Lufthansa and Swiss airlines announced yesterday that as from next March, they would be offering three direct flights a week to Dusseldorf, Hamburg and Geneva, to coincide with the start of the activities around the Americas Cup. The Spanish representatives of these two airlines, who gave a press conference in Valencia yesterday to outline the new flights, also started that apart from the Americas Cup, another of the main reasons for these flights was that economic and tourist increases that Valencia has recently been undertaking. Jose Luis Lopez of Swiss, one of the sponsors of the Alinghi syndicate also added that the continuation of these route after the Cup races had taken place would depend on the commercial success they had achieved, whilst Thomas Mittelbach of Lufthansa stated that the company ‘was very interested’ in offering more flights from Valencia. Mr. Mittelbach also stated that fares on the three flights a week that the company would be operating would be priced at 90 Euros return plus commission charges. These two new routes are on top of those that the company already flies between Valencia and Munich in collaboration with Spanair.

The New Valencia

"The proof of the pudding is in the eating" seems particularly appropriate here, given that the proverb apparently dates from Cervantes in his Don Quixote of 1605....




Valencia Opens To The Sea - Spain's City Of Light To Become City Of Sails; Mediterranean Port Welcomes America's Cup
Dec 21, 06 | 2:22 pm


Valencia, SPAIN, December, 2006 - To welcome the competitors for the America's Cup next year, Valencia is opening itself to the sea. For the first time in more than 150 years - from June 23 to July 7, 2007 - Europe will host sailing's most prestigious event. Aficionados from around the world - some 6 million are expected - will flock to this sunny city on Spain's Mediterranean to watch the world's best yachtsmen from 10 countries battle it out as the Swiss Alinghi team defends its title against 11 other teams. Officials are predicting the America's Cup will create 10,000 jobs and generate $1.5 billion for the Spanish region's economy.

In 1851 Queen Victoria watched the last competition in Europe as the yacht America representing the New York Yacht Club beat 15 British vessels racing around the Isle of Wight. Since then, America's Cup races have only been held in Britain, the U.S., Australia and New Zealand. Reliable wind conditions, year-round temperate weather and the promise of a race that will bring spectators closer to the sailing action were key factors in convincing officials that Valencia would be the best venue. Preceding the America's Cup April 3 to 7 is the Louis Vuitton Act 13 Fleet Race and the Louis Vuitton Cup, April 16 to June 12. The winner of the final Act goes up against the Alinghi team.

Three years ago, Valencia began an ambitious urban planning program with a view to creating one of the top ports in the Mediterranean. One of the major projects has been the creation of a new urban area, the Balcón al Mar, which integrates the city with the port, marina and beach areas. Valencia has spent $637.5 million revitalizing the waterfront alone, and by next year the inner harbor and commercial port will be transformed into a state-of-the-art marina - or several of them. In the center of the inner harbor will be the mega yacht marina for vessels larger than 98 feet. A 1,968-foot channel has been opened to allow the racers and their boats direct access from their bases to the sea. A new breakwater provides marinas on either side of the channel with mooring for 700 sailing vessels. At the entrance to the canal sits the emblematic Sails and Winds building, the Foredeck & Owner's Club designed by David Chipperfield and Fermín Vázquez. Offering panoramic views of the inner harbor, the $45.9 million building will have six restaurants, 20 clubs, bars and other entertainment venues - all providing privileged bird's eye views of the races. Lying alongside the channel is the 34-acre America's Cup Park, where 600,000 sailing enthusiasts will follow the competition on giant TV screens. Here, more restaurants and entertainment venues will be joined to the lower seafront promenade by ramps leading down to Malvarrosa Beach and the mile-long, palm-lined Paseo Maritimo.

Full story



The Port America's Cup, as it exists (for the most part) today. While life for the teams in a 24/7 construction zone has not been all peaches and cream, the facility is second-to-none in the history of the Cup. Build it and they will come? We shall soon find out.



June '06 -- the opening ceremony for the Port America's Cup during Act 11.

And in Return?

From today's Valencia Life....

ALL THANKS TO THE CUP

Several sectors of Valencian Industry have estimated that the staging of the Americas Cup races in Valencia is having a much greater effect on the local economy than was first thought. Juan Carlos Gelabert, the head of the Valencian Hotel Industry stated that one out of every four Euros spent by tourists in Valencia is due to the Cup. This is also borne out by Luis Marti of the Valencian Hotel union who added that the Cup had forced several major hotel chains to speed up their implantation of five-star establishments in the City to accommodate the top end of the tourism market that the Americas Cup visitors would need. Mr. Marti also encouraged the Valencian authorities to try and ensure that similar projects of equal importance are staged in the City in order that the new range of five-star establishments do not see their investments ‘going downhill’. Eloy Dura of the Valencian Construction Industry Association stated that the TV transmission of the Americas Cup races ‘is the best advertisement in the world for Valencia. He also added that the technology brought to Valencia by the Americas Cup is proving to be highly beneficial not only to the City but to the autonomy as a whole. e also stated that the technology associoated with the event is proving very beneficial to the City as well as the Autonomy.

This has also been borne out by Jose Salinas, the head of the Valencian Convention Bureau, who stated that foreign tourists who come to Valencia generally spend on average about 2,445 Euros, whilst the average spending for a Spanish visitor is 1,700 Euros.

Valencia's "Transformation"

From the travel section of today's Boston Globe....


Valencia exudes the fine arts of transformation
By Necee Regis, Globe Correspondent | November 26, 2006

VALENCIA, Spain -- If your travels haven't taken you to Valencia recently, you're in for a pleasant surprise. This formerly sleepy city on the Mediterranean coast has transformed itself, literally, through two ambitious and impressive public projects.

First, Valencia found a world-class architect to design a spectacular series of buildings along 86 acres of abandoned riverbed -- though calling Santiago Calatrava's sculptural structures "buildings" is a bit like calling Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling a "painting."

The project Calatrava -- a native son -- helped develop, the City of Arts and Sciences , is a futuristic vision built in steel, glass, concrete, and white ceramic tiles. This city-within-a-city, designed to combine education with entertainment and leisure, includes Europe's largest aquarium, a 450,00-square- foot science museum, a planetarium and IMAX theater, and a performing arts center with two performance halls where Zubin Mehta and Loren Maazel preside over opera, ballet, and orchestral music.

Walking through the new city is an adventure in itself. Calatrava wanted his creation to represent the sea and sky of the Mediterranean, and the brilliant white structures and reflecting pools do indeed produce intense reflections (on a sunny day , sunglasses and a hat with a brim are advised). Whimsy also plays a role in the architecture: The performing arts center resembles a gigantic white helmet and the planetarium/IMAX structure resembles the world's largest eye surrounded by two huge lakes.

It's a walk of more than a mile from the performing arts building to the aquarium (comfortable shoes also advised), which was designed by the late Félix Candela , a Mexican architect born in Spain. The series of white hyperbolic paraboloid roofs set within a nature reserve fits right into the city's contemporary design. With more than 500 species of marine life housed here, including dolphins, white whales, sea lions, fish, and wetland birds, you could easily spend a day at the aquarium .

Most impressive is the fact that construction on this project began in 1997 and was completed in 2005, although residence towers in the area remain a work in progress.

"Valencia has changed so much in the past 10 years that people here don't recognize their own city," said Patricia Pico, who works at the City of Arts and Sciences.

The city's second large-scale project involves the waterfront where, again, Valencia has taken a downtrodden area and turned it into something remarkable, almost in the blink of an eye.

"Valencia gave its back to the sea. Now we want to change that -- to be open to the sea," said Pico.

Nothing spurs progress like a deadline. In 2003, Switzerland won the America's Cup , bringing the famed sailing competition back to Europe for the first time in 152 years. The landlocked Swiss chose Valencia to host the 2007 event and for the past two years the city has worked feverishly -- and successfully -- to transform an abandoned section of an active commercial harbor (one of the largest in Europe) into a viable America's Cup site.

There are 12 new buildings that serve as headquarters for each competing team, including the defender, Alinghi, and the US team, BMW-Oracle Racing from San Francisco. To keep the racing yachts and commercial vessels from getting in each other's way, Valencia carved a new half-mile canal out to the ocean.

The newly developed waterfront is open to the public (once you pass through security) and includes a hall of historic exhibitions with models of all 32 past Cup winners, South Beach-style restaurants, and a harborside promenade. Preliminary regattas have already been held, and the Louis Vuitton regattas in the spring will determine the Cup challenger .

Full story

'Tis the Season

As our friends and families in the States get into the full swing of the year-end holidays with the four-day Thanksgiving weekend, this note in today's Valencia Life email newsletter about the same here in VLC:

CHRISTMAS IS HERE

The festive season that is Christmas appeared to be under way in Valencia yesterday after the El Corte Ingles Commercial Centres and the Colon Market turned on their special lights for this time of year. The one contrary element was the weather that saw temperatures rose to over twenty degrees in some parts of the city.

Tide Turns for Valencia...

...or so says the headline in today's Times of London for this article on the local holiday and retirement home market:

Tide turns for Valencia
Prices have soared in Spain’s third city as it prepares to host the world’s most prestigious yacht race, discovers Jane Padgham
Mention Spanish cities, and most people think Barcelona or Madrid. But Valencia, Spain’s third-largest city, is becoming increasingly popular with British visitors, who come to shop in its designer shops, stroll around the historic quarter and visit the architecturally stunning Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias complex (City of Arts and Sciences).

And with the old port and beach area being comprehensively spruced up ahead of next summer’s America’s Cup, the holiday-home market is booming.

Local and central government investment in the world’s most famous yachting event is estimated at £270m. But while the cup has been the catalyst, the cash injection will benefit the city long after the yachts have sailed away.

The impetus of the cup has hastened the expansion of the metro — which has four lines, serves the city centre well and is currently extending further out into the provinces — to the airport, which is getting a much-needed second runway. New hotels are springing up and a five-lane, one-way road system links the port to the city centre, replacing the previous traffic-clogged artery.

So what is Valencia like? It lacks the cosmopolitan, trendy feel of Barcelona, but is a charming city nonetheless. It is an appealing mix of old and new: baroque buildings juxtaposed with the futuristic work of Santiago Calatrava, the internationally acclaimed local architect who designed most of the Cuidad de las Artes y las Ciencias complex.

The historic heart of the city, El Carmen, is a compact nucleus with a maze of narrow streets and attractive plazas, easily explored on foot, while a 15-minute bus or tram journey will take you to the beach and restaurant areas of Las Arenas and La Malvarrosa, as well as the rejuvenated old port, heart of America’s Cup action.

And then there is the climate: local tourist authorities claim you can sprawl on the beach for nine months of the year. “We don’t do clouds” was a recent tourism slogan, promoting a city that has more than 300 cloudless days each year and more than 3km of broad sand.

While El Carmen might be the Brits’ first choice, it is relatively expensive, and Crespo says neighbouring Russafa is a better bet, an area he describes as “the Notting Hill of Valencia”.

Those wanting to buy nearer the beach and America’s Cup action will be disappointed: much of the area is ugly, run-down or resembles a building site.

Full story