Alinghi Capsizes at the Ishares Cup in Switzerland - News and Video

Lake Lugano, Switzerland - Alinghi claims the first capsize of the iShares Cup season in a big rain squall on Lake Lugano, as Shirley Robertson scores the first win.

The first race of the 2008 iShares Cup season was certainly exciting, delivering plenty of drama on the lake and the first capsize of the season for America’s Cup defenders Alinghi. With light winds on Lake Lugano in Switzerland, the nine boat racing fleet started the first iShares Cup race with BT and Holmatro taking an early lead over the line. The catamarans then set off on a reaching leg to the top mark, with most of the fleet opting to use their gennakers while flying one hull to lay the first mark.

As the catamarans went around a crowded windward mark, with most opting to furl their gennakers and tack around, some boats struggled to control that big sail - dragging it in the water. iShares was in the lead as the fleet came past the race village for the first time. Then, on the second lap a sudden and big squall swept through the catamaran fleet.

Skipper of Alinghi, Ed Baird: “We were sailing in light winds, we had a good race going, we were in third and looking at passing into second... A squall came through just after we rounded the windward mark the second time and most of the fleet was still going upwind when we got hit with this very violent front edge of the squall. The two boats in the worst of the velocity were us and Holmatro because we were both so close together neither of us had an escape route. We both went up and we both put the noses in. They were somehow able to avoid capsizing and we did not unfortunately. It’s all part of the learning of this game and unfortunately if we had been going upwind it wouldn’t have happened and if we’d been further downwind it would have been different again. It was a case of wrong place wrong time. We went from racing to survival in an instant...”

Alinghi broke their mast while trying to upright the catamaran, and with the boat and mast now ashore, the Alinghi team will have to burn some midnight oil to get the spare up and be back out on the lake for tomorrow's racing.

Video: The extreme 40 catamaran Alinghi capsizing at the Ishares Cup in Switzerland.

iShares Cup - Lugano (Switzerland) Day 1 / Race 1:

• 1st JPMorgan Asset Management (Shirley Robertson)
• 2nd Team Origin (Rob Greenhalgh)
• 3rd BT (Nick Moloney)
• 4th Oman Sail (Pete Cumming)
• 5th Volvo Ocean Race (Herbert Dercksen)
• 6th Team Aqua (Cameron Appleton)
• 7th iShares (Hugh Styles)
• OCS Holmatro
• DNF Alinghi

Photos: Vincent Curutchet/DPPI/OC Events