Answering the call – part 1
The first instalment of our exclusive multi-part interview with Alinghi Red Bull Racing co-general manager and head of technical operations, Silvio Arrivabene.
When Italian sailor Silvio Arrivabene finished the 36th America’s Cup with the New York Yacht Club’s American Magic syndicate in New Zealand last year he was happy to be making a return to his ‘normal’ life back in Europe where he is a well known name on the Grand Prix and superyacht circuit.
But before he could get too settled into his old routine a call from his old boss – Alinghi owner Ernesto Bertarelli – put him straight back on the America’s Cup trail.
Arrivabene had previously worked for the Swiss billionaire during the 33rd America’s Cup – the infamous monster multihull DoG match held in Valencia in 2010 against Larry Ellison’s BMW Oracle Racing.
He joined the Swiss squad immediately after racing with Vincent Onorato’s Italian syndicate Mascalzone Latino at the 32nd America’s Cup where he had been worked first as a navigator before being drafted into a management role as the team’s technical director.
Despite being on the losing side of the Valencia DoG fight Arrivabene greatly enjoyed his time with Alinghi.
It was a campaign which he remembers as a huge adventure – especially moments like when the team flew their newly built gigantic catamaran over the snow capped peaks of Alps dangling precariously underneath a helicopter.
So when the Alinghi founder told him he was putting the band back together for a new Swiss challenge for the 37th America’s Cup, he didn’t hesitate in saying yes.
“In honesty, many of us have been waiting for that phone to ring for the last 10 years since the Deed of Gift Match, just because it was such a great team” he tells me. “So I couldn't answer anything else – and here we are.”
What was it then, I wondered, that made the previous Alinghi experience so special and so fondly remembered by those who were part of it?
“In my opinion it’s the quality of the people involved, the respect there is amongst each other, the consideration and respect for the work that each one of us does,” Arrivabene tells me without hesitation.
“That makes for a very motivating, rewarding environment and it is driven from the top, no question. The way that Ernesto organises things – his vision and style – permeates through the entire team and through all the ranks people embrace it.”
Despite turning his back on the America’s Cup after the 2010 defeat in Valencia Bertarelli had nevertheless made no secret that he was tracking the Cup’s trajectory over the last three cycles.
He bided his time patiently, indulging his passion for fast foiling catamaran racing on the lakes around Europe on the GC32 and TF35 circuit, and now he is back – this time in partnership with Red Bull Racing – for another tilt at sailing’s most cherished prize.
According to Arrivabene, the Alinghi/Red Bull Racing tie up had been under discussion for a good while.
“They have been talking about doing something together for many years now,” he explains. “He [Bertarelli] has such similar visions and similar targets and values to Red Bull. That's why they have got along so well with each other for all these years. Now the stars aligned because the AC75 is so technological and spectacular and both sides were very keen on it.”
That original Alinghi spirit that people so valued is very much alive within the new organisation,” Arrivabene is happy to tell me.
“So far, people are happy to work here,” he says. “Busy, obviously – but happy too.”
Arrivabene believes that the technological firepower that Red Bull has brought to the table is an important element of this new look Alinghi campaign – particularly given the complexity of the AC75 foiling monohull America’s Cup class.
“As we know, these AC75s now are a mix of many disciplines. There are electronics everywhere, everything is fully integrated and there are so many things that are intertwined.
“You have got to expand your horizons. It's not just the shapes, not just the naval architecture. It's also how you can use those shapes, how you can make everything more efficient.
“Design teams nowadays in each of the America's Cup syndicates are 40 or so people. Back in '07 with the V5 boats it would have been maybe 10 (plus a few experts here and there off-site).
“We have got to keep up with the times and certainly these [Red Bull] guys from Formula One have been doing all this well before us and it's great to be able to have access to them.”
Arrivabene clarified at this point that the Swiss sailing team interacts with the internal sister company ‘Red Bull Advanced Technology’ – and not directly with the Formula 1 team.
“Our relationship is with the Austrian mother company Red Bull through the long interaction between Ernesto and Mr. Mateschitz,” he says.
“In the Red Bull ‘galaxy’ there is the Formula One team ‘Red Bull Racing’ which had a spinoff recently called ‘Red Bull Advanced Technology’. It’s a sister company within the same compound and we work with those guys.”
Gathering technological input from two diverse sports like yacht racing and motor racing requires careful management.
“We brainstorm a lot about things,” Arrivabene tells me. “It’s certainly a very interesting and very motivating process. We exchange ideas on several topics, We show them how we do things, they show us how they do things.
“It helps that they all come from a racing background, so they know very well the challenges related to the type of competition we are engaged in.”
Nevertheless, Arrivabene recognises that it is important never to lose sight of the fact that the America’s Cup is a sailing competition and not motorsport.
“Ultimately it's a yacht racing and in the end we have to design and build a boat,” he says. “So naval architecture and yachting-related thinking and discussions are still very prevalent.”
So is having a Formula 1 team as a technical partner now an essential element for any team with serious aspirations of winning the America’s Cup?
Probably not, according to Arrivabene.
“Team New Zealand has shown that they can win without doing that,” he points out.
“I believe that as engineers and technological people, the concept of opening our minds and talking to experts in fields that are new to us is certainly a great opportunity. But to say we cannot win this without a Formula One team is probably a bit of a stretch today.”
As technical director at Alinghi Red Bull Racing Arrivabene is responsible for everything related to the boat – “the conception, design, construction, modification, maintenance” as he puts it – as well as the shore support team and practical tasks like launching and retrieving the boats.
He also shares the overall management of the team with Pierre-Yves Jorand (sport/sailing team/performance) and Michel Hodara, an Alinghi and America’s Cup management veteran, who Arrivabene says looks after ‘the other dimension’, which is everything else, including marketing, sponsors, and administration.
Although Alinghi continued on as a team after its last America’s Cup in 2010, it was scaled back dramatically to a small sailing team of around 10 or so people competing on the GC32 and TF35 circuits.
That meant starting from scratch for the team’s challenge for the 37th America’s Cup.
“All the assets related to the America's Cup were all sold, so when we started roughly one year ago, it was from zero,” Arrivabene says. “We've been flat out all along – just super, super busy every day.”
Key early priorities for Arrivabene in his new role were to assemble the key people he wanted for his design team and to start developing design tools while the team waited for the announcement of the new AC75 design rule and dived into the nuances of the latest lengthy AC Protocol document.
Also high on his priority list was to start to feel out the relationship with the team’s new collaborators at Red Bull Advanced Technologies, as well as organising a sailing programme in Switzerland, and priming the team’s Swiss build facility in Ecublens, near Lausanne.
Now, with Barcelona confirmed as the host city for the 37th America’s Cup, Arrivabene has turned his attention to setting up a sailing base for the team’s first-generation AC75 which was recently purchased from Cup holders Emirates Team New Zealand.
READ PART 2
Good article,