Ocean71
Menu

Sailing

High seas entrapment

Show on Google Maps

On February 8, 2010, Alinghi and BMW-Oracle disputed the 33rd edition of the legendary America’s Cup. Behind the two sea monsters, two businessmen have been waging a merciless war for two years. OCEAN71 Magazine investigated at sea and on land to understand this unique situation.






File summary

  1. Espionage in Switzerland
  2. Two destinies, one dream
  3. Two sharks in the same aquarium
  4. The trap is set
  5. The American’s secret weapon
  6. French expertise comes into play.

Espionage in Switzerland

For two days Jean-Antoine Bonnaveau lurked. Camera and GPS in hand, the 50 year-old Frenchman’s eyes were glued to two oversized white tents out of place in an industrial parking lot in Villeneuve, a small Swiss town on the edge of Lake Geneva. Bonnaveau’s mission was simple if a little unusual for an engineer specialised in sail design. By hook or by crook he was to obtain the dimensions and build secrets of Swiss billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli’s best kept secret: his 33rd America’s Cup Alinghi multihull.

The giant catamaran of the swiss team Alinghi in Villeneuve, Switzerland © Carlo Borlenghi / Alinghi

As expected, the site had full security and surveillance, so he tucked himself away in the vineyards above the town and trained the long lens of his camera on the Alinghi base. At quiet moments he wandered around the outside of the base taking GPS measurements of the tent which served as a boat shed. After three days of surveillance he paid a visit to an apartment that would make a perfect base to monitor Alinghi activities.

Having staked out the job, he left the country ignorant of the fact that he had been spotted and filmed by an Alinghi cameraman who had also filmed his car number plates. Interpol launched a search and the French police picked him up in Nîmes where the unfortunate Frenchman was questioned. It turns out he was a long term employee of BMW Oracle Racing, the America’s Cup syndicate owned by American billionaire Larry Ellison. Ellison has his mind set on the America’s Cup, which Ernesto Bertarelli has won twice.

Other files

  • La base aquarius au large de la Floride

    Living underwater, dream or reality ?

    Culture, Ecology – 3 chapters

    In the 60s, a group of pioneers demonstrated that it was possible to live below the surface of the water. What remains of this technology today? Not much. Nonetheless, the dream hasn’t faded away. Regularly, various projects of underwater restaurants, hotels and museums are presented with computer animations. But not a single one of them sees the light of day. We investigated to unravel the reality behind the dream.






  • Nigeria’s dangerous oil

    Geopolitics – 1 chapter

    Pierre* is an officer in the French merchant navy as there are thousands across the world. Yet, after a six-month mission to Nigeria, he returns with a first hand account. The experience of a man who has worked in the very closed oil world in the Gulf of Guinea. Pierre was not laid off. He has simply decided to stop working in this little known hell.






  • The secret side of piracy

    Economy, Geopolitics – 2 chapters

    In the last 10 years, piracy has made a come back. From Somalia and Nigeria to the Caribbean and far-flung Asian archipelagos men are capitalising on weak leadership of the State to seize commercial ships and private yachts for ransom. We decided to investigate the reasons for this resurgence and discovered a world and practices that are witnessed by the ocean alone.