The skippers met on the roof of Castel dell’Ovo ahead of four days of AC40 racing, with ARC Team USA and La Roche-Posay Racing Team making their debut on the Bay of Naples.
The second Preliminary Regatta of the Louis Vuitton 38th America’s Cup opened in Naples today, as skippers gathered on the rooftop of the Castel dell’Ovo before Official Practice Racing at 14:00 CEST. Over the next four days the fleet will sail eight fleet races, and the top two teams will meet in a winner-takes-all Match Race Final on Sunday.
Much of the talk before the press conference centred on the two debutants, La Roche-Posay Racing Team and ARC Team USA. Luna Rossa and Emirates Team New Zealand, who set the benchmark at the first Preliminary Regatta in Sardinia, both struck a cautious tone, with forecasts pointing to changeable conditions over the weekend.
GB1 trimmer Andrea Tesei said the local sea breeze would be far harder to read than the one in Cagliari. “Here you start with more of a 230, then swapping into a 270 and coming off this hill of Posillipo, which makes it very shifty and very gusty,” he said. “There’s going to be a lot to do in terms of being on the right shift and on the right side of the pressure.”
Nathan Outteridge, skipper of Emirates Team New Zealand, arrives after a rare defeat in the Sardinia final. “There’s always big pressure in an America’s Cup event, right? But there’s only as much pressure as you put on yourself,” he said. The team, he added, would use Naples to work on what it had identified in Cagliari. “I’m sure that we’ll finish here with a longer list than what we started with, which is how the America’s Cup works.”
Peter Burling steers Luna Rossa 1 with a new line-up that includes co-helm Marco Gradoni and trimmers Gianluigi Ugolini and Maria Giubilei. “We feel like we’re in really good shape to perform this weekend,” Burling said. “But we also feel like we’re on a really steep part of the learning curve with quite new configurations.”
GB1 skipper Dylan Fletcher came to the press conference with a scar on his face from a collision with the Tudor Team Alinghi chase boat just before the first practice start earlier in the week. “Fortunately everyone was safe,” he said. “Alinghi lent us their spare foil arm to get our race foil arm fixed up, so thanks to them and we’re looking forward to getting out there.”
Tudor Team Alinghi skipper Paul Goodison said his team was better prepared than it had been in Sardinia. “The boat’s becoming more reliable and faster every day,” he said. “It feels like the team’s grown a lot and quite quickly the last two weeks, and we’re excited to get racing again.”
La Roche-Posay Racing Team’s AC75 arrived in Bagnoli by barge from Lorient this morning, but skipper Quentin Delapierre kept his focus on the AC40 racing. “That’s all about the trust between the four guys on board and I think we are in good shape on this side with Jase (Saunders), Florian (Trittel) and Diego (Botín),” he said.
ARC Team USA’s Harry Melges IV will helm from the starboard pod despite breaking his foot last week when he stepped onto a RIB in training. “All you need is your head and your hands to sail this boat, so it should be all good,” he said. Melges noted that Naples is the team’s first regatta and also the last chance to race before next year’s main event. “We’re really focused on the future and making sure we’re learning every day and getting better every day.”
Women’s sailors were represented by Hannah Mills, skipper of Cobham-Ultra GB2, and Margherita Porro, skipper of Luna Rossa 2 and defending Women’s America’s Cup champion. With Giubilei trimming on Luna Rossa’s principal team, Porro said: “We have at least one girl on both boats, and I think it’s a pretty good message.”
“There’s no other warm-up, really,” Mills said. “The chance to get to race on the racecourse, yeah, it’s amazing.”
