Francois and his wife Virginie Nivelleau are in Bermuda looking at the venue for the 35th Americas Cup and reflecting on their involvement in previous years.
The Nivelleau’s worked with Alinghi having worked at Team New Zealand for its successful defense of the Cup in 2000.
Francois Nivelleau has sailed since early childhood, cruising and racing, first in Marseille and later further afield. Then he converted his hobby into a career. “I started specializing in design in the late eighties, working in towing tanks and wind tunnels and then developed a sail vision system for the French America's Cup attempt in 1995.” He has worked on every America’s Cup since 1992.
Nivelleau is lucky to be able to work closely with his wife in the America’s Cup, something he has done for many years. “Normally we are responsible for the experimental field, the onboard measurements, new sensors, wind tunnel testing and Sail Vision,” he says. “The job has changed this time however. The development of the boat is finished, so we have no experimentation to do in wind tunnels. Instead our main occupation has been working on measurements at sea, looking at environmental elements such as the current and how that will relate to the sailing of the boat.” He and Virginie first met at university, aged 18, where they discovered a mutual love of mathematics and hydrodynamics. But working together and living together - doesn’t it put a strain on the relationship sometimes? “If anything, it makes the relationship better,” says Nivelleau. “When so many couples in the America’s Cup have to spend so much time apart we are lucky that we can work together the way that we do.”
