Alinghi: SUI91 Flies Home

www.alinghi.com

SUI91 Flies Home
2007-03-05

SUI91 arrived in Valencia yesterday afternoon on an Antonov plane from Dubai. SUI64 is due to follow by ship.

This is the first time during this campaign that the Swiss Defender has flown a racing yacht, the last being in 2001, when the team flew SUI64 from Geneva to Auckland where they successfully won the America’s Cup in 2003.

The plane for the occasion was the Antonov AN-124, one of 56 built and introduced in 1986. It can carry up to 150tonnes and 88 passengers, although they rarely take more than a few due to limited pressurisation in the fuselage. Six crew members fly the 68.96m plane – which stands 20.78m high and has a wing-span of 73.3m – at a maximum speed of 865km/h and a cruising speed of 800km/h.

The Antonov landed in Valencia on Sunday, late afternoon and SUI91 will be transported to the Alinghi base during the course of Monday. Sailing is on schedule for mid-March.

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Alinghi flies the colours of the Société Nautique de Genève, Switzerland. Its partners for the 2007 campaign are UBS and BT Infonet (Main Partners), as well as Audemars Piguet, SGS, Nespresso, MSC Cruises and North Sails (Co sponsors).
Visit our web site at: www.alinghi.com

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