Boat Details

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America's Cup Class Boat Record
Sail Number	59
Owner	+39 Challenge
Country Currently on Sail	ITA
Lying	Valencia
Status	On Shore
Current Activity
Notes (add any information relevant to this boat - press the Update button to record your changes. We will update the database fields with your additions & corrections)	be hAPpy Fast2000 Finished 11th in 2000 LV Cup Round Robins. Alinghi training boat for 2003 Unconfirmed rumours of sale to Team France Boat was shipped to Valencia by Alinghi. Now displayed in front of the Valencia Science Museum(Mmediapress.com) Is still deemed to be 2nd Alinghi training boat alongside 64 until v5 hulls are delivered. (infocopaamerica.com) (Greg) Sold +39 Aug 26 2004 To be launched Sep 24 Converted to v5 May 2005 Bigger peice to be edited --- Currently in service with Italy’s ‘+39 Challenge’, ITA59 is a yacht that has only managed to show her true potential nearly 6 years after her debut racing. Occasionally, an America’s Cup Class yacht can be truly branded as a radical. Bizarre hardware configurations with real flair are often attempted in an effort to give your boat that edge that can’t be beaten. The original Philippe Briand/Peter Van Oosenen SUI 59, or ‘Be Happy’ raced the first ever Swiss Challenge for the 30th America’s Cup in Auckland. Her twin keel arrangement was completely different from any other competitor in that event, but has been tried in several other past instances with mixed results. The twin keel principle, sees two moving keel blades underneath the yacht, with the ballast bulb of lead suspended either between the foils or individually on each. In this situation, due to the rules the rudder of the yacht is eliminated, however, the yacht can be steered with the moving keels. While in principle this works well, and makes a fast yacht in a straight line, it does not work so well match racing. These configurations make the yacht hard to rapidly manoeuvre, and very technical to sail, which seems to have lead to their downfall thus far. This system was also tried on NZL 20 by New Zealand Challenge in 1992, which saw the yacht race the Louis Vuitton Final. A combination was also under development by the GBR Challenge with their second un-trialed yacht GBR 78 Wight Magic, which was never truly developed. Some excellent potential has been seen in each of these three yachts, but the jury is still somewhat undecided on its true merit. SUI 59 had a terrible time in the 2000 Louis Vuitton Cup, almost a guaranteed loser each day. Her full potential was never realized, then cracking a keel blade and losing her mast late in the round robins, prematurely ended her campaign with no spare available. 'Still Swiss' ‘Be Happy’ spent a long time on Auckland’s Container docks before being rescued by Ernesto Berterelli and Russell Coutts in 2000. On her return to Switzerland, she was completely remodeled, back to a conventional keel and rudder configuration at the hand of Vrolijk and Coutts. With a little controversy, the reborn SUI 59 immediately took a similar look to NZL 60, and proved to be the Version 1 fore runner for SUI 64 and SUI 75. Each one of these yachts sported the signature ‘high’ Vrolijk bow, which first took shape on ESP 47 back in 2000. She trialed many days against SUI 64 while SUI 75 was refined, and was retired once both new boats were fully operational. She then stood as a full display yacht in Alinghi’s Auckland compound until their departure in 2003. Once the yacht had been retired, she became obsolete in the light of her new sisters. She was then shipped to Valencia, and filled with Sand as a display in the ‘Ciudad de las Artes y Ciencias’ for a short time. It was after this that +39 made a last minute purchase of the yacht for their 2004 race debut in Valencia. 'A Last Chance' The +39 team had little time to prepare their new yacht for racing, and it represented a huge leap in technology from their 1992 training platform. The 2004 Valencia ACT’s ITA 59 sailed bravely by her crew, but dogged by hardware failure. This saw several retirements from racing, therefore a conclusive result was hard to establish. A highlight was there win over Le Defi (now China Team) who were sailing an generation newer, and better prepared yacht. The 2005 season dawned with ITA 59 undergoing her necessary modifications to conform to the new Version 5. Mixed results during ACT’s 4&5 saw +39 have an average rather than first rate yacht. The crew again tackled the continual steep learning curve, with their core of raw sailing talent with a scattering of experienced AC talent. The recent addition of Ian Walker to the afterguard during ACT 6, saw a vast improvement and some new found form for the +39 team. This has seen ITA 59 become a true threat, and able to mix it with the big guns for the first time. Ultimately, the victory over NZL 82 showed that from a misspent youth, this yacht has matured into a fine performer. This bodes well for +39, as with a good platform to train from higher ultimate results will be achieved during 2006 and on.
Web Links ( these are not yet live links - this is just a space for collecting links - they will be live later)	http://www.saileurope.com/da/13438
Rule Version	5
Just the Notes and Links fields are updateable on-line. We will transfer your information from there to the proper database fields. This feature has been abused and will be removed - a revised update mechanism will be be created soon.
This page will be developed to include a full ownership history, racing history and photo gallery for each boat. This will be kept up to date as news arrives. For now we are catching up on any current information. If you know where this boat is, her condition, owner, current activity etc please add to the Notes section above (with your screen name), we'll update the database. The data that is on this page is a mixture of information form other websites (thanks Bill Hughen & Erwan Le Ravallec), recent news, personal knowledge and guesswork. Any help would be much appreciated.