America’s Cup now make us dream, we need it

The wait is over. If the upcoming regattas are not the real America’s Cup, which will begin with the Prada Cup mid-January, in fact the first water challenges of theAmerica’s Cup World Series, Dec. 17-20, catapult us to the other side of the earth, to New Zealand, where it all began, for Luna Rossa, on nights between 1999 and 2000.

Dwhere were you that night, and with whom were you watching the regatta, when Luna Rossa won by a whisker against the Frenchmen of Le Defi who overran the finish line paving the way to the Louis Vuitton Cup final for ours? Where were you on that night that American One, attacked on the stern right tack by Luna Rossa, in an epic race in nearly 30 knots, overextended and then exploded the spinnaker? And who were you watching the regatta with, that night of February 6, 2000, when Luna Rossa was about to cross the finish line of the last race of the Louis Vuitton Cup, and from aboard you could hear Stefano Rizzi’s voice crisply asking, “Baron, now may I congratulate you?” The Baron was the Neapolitan helmsman Francesco De Angelis who, as a good superstitious Neapolitan, was allergic to advance compliments.

THE DREAM OF THE BOYS WE WERE

There is a generation of sailors in Italy who became one because they spent those sleepless nights watching the Luna Rossa races broadcast live from Auckland by RAI. In 1999-2000, this generation was 15-16 years old, little more or less, no thoughts on their minds, and their passion for sailing exploded in nights spent in front of the TV trying to figure out where the hell Torben Grael was going with his tactical insights. In fact, the earliest memory of the Cup that we sailing in our 30s and 40s goes back even earlier: the Cup was broadcast on Telemontecarlo, in the foreground there was often a gentleman with a mustache biting his lip, a guy named Paul Cayard who would later be Luna Rossa’s opponent, and Dad would talk about a certain bowsprit, but we didn’t understand what it was since on the Optimist on which we were moving our first edges as newborn sailors this mysterious bowsprit just wasn’t there.

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It was 1992, the Moor of Venice we barely remember, on the broadcast every now and then a certain Avvocato Agnelli would call in, who seemed to have the voice of the noble uncle calling you on your birthday. That was the spring, much more than the 1983 Azzurra challenge, that made many Italians stay, a few years later, glued in front of the TV on the magical nights with Luna Rossa in late 1999 and early 2000. And so it is true: in those months many of us dreamed of becoming sailors and some even succeeded.

Today Italian sailing returns to Auckland with Luna Rossa, with the dreams of the boys we were and the certainties of the sailors we have become. A terrible year this 2020, there is no hiding it. But if there is one thing that even in the difficulties we are experiencing we never stop doing, it is dreaming. And what could be more evocative and dreamlike than the image of a sailboat flying over the water. Yeah, 20 years ago if we had been told that the America’s Cup boats of the future flew we would have laughed. Yet it happened.

The new AC 75s fly on water, it is called “foiling,” and they do so at speeds never before seen on a sail-powered craft. But if there is one thing that has certainly not changed, it is him, the wind that moves the boat. So let us dream, it costs nothing, Luna Rossa in this unfortunate period will be an opportunity to take our imagination elsewhere, to a place where only the wind and the sea count.

THE NEW BOATS

AC 75 catapulted us into a new era, practically into the future. But then again, why should the America’s Cup resemble other races, or should it be run on boats that resemble others that already exist?

The criticism some of the public has of this Cup is that the new boat should have looked like a big Tp 52, so they could all understand it. Never in the history of the Cup have its boats resembled something that already exists or is common to many.

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The mid-19th century sailing ships were not, the J Classes were not, and the 12 Meters were not, and not even the much lamented IACCs resembled “normal” boats: the day the America’s Cup becomes a normal regatta perhaps no one will care anymore. And for that matter, it has never even been the main goal of the America’s Cup to meet with widespread public approval; that, if anything, has been a consequence.

The Old Pitcher is simply the ultimate in nautical technology that a nation can express. And in a world going at breakneck speed, in a sailing where the “foil generation” has now exploded, the Cup is keeping up with the times, as is probably appropriate for a regatta that has always looked forward and never backward. For a part of the public that will not follow it, there will be a new one that will approach it. The rest is social bar talk.

WHAT AMERICA’S CUP AWAITS US

What America’s Cup will it be? On the one hand, the world’s oldest trophy has not changed. Espionage, spite, design solutions imitated from one boat to another, strokes of genius and insights-the “spice” is what we are already familiar with.

The spectacle on the water, on the other hand, will be very different even though the courses return to what we are used to. It will be match racing, with an upwind start, after a classic countdown, and then stern sides. So far, nothing new. But with boats that will boil at more than 35 knots and stern at almost 50, it is obvious that things will change and not by a little.

We are beginning to get used to the annoying limits of the race course, which, while they will seem obnoxious, are almost inevitable because at these speeds we would risk such separations between the two contenders that they would literally kill the show.

The boundaries of the race course are functional to ensure that the boats stay in contact. But to do so will require similar speeds. This is still too early to tell, although the rumors coming out of Auckland tell us that the second generation AC 75 has much smoother performance than the first. But then again, major speed differences existed even in the Cup of yesteryear, when perhaps Luna Rossa or another top team would trim 4-5 minutes off a Chinese or Swiss crew.

The regatta formula for the rest is the same as always, albeit with only three challengers. The Prada Cup replaced the Louis Vuitton Cup for challenger selection.

It starts on Dec. 17 with the World Series, regattas that will not award points, then on Jan. 15, 2021 we will start in earnest with the first official Prada Cup regatta. There will be four round robins of three races each, for a total of 12 races. From Jan. 29 the semifinals are scheduled, with 7 races, and from Feb. 13 the finals between the two challengers with the most points will be staged, best of 13 races. Then it will be America’s Cup, March 6 to 21, 2021, between Team New Zealand and the challenger, again best of 13 races.

THE CHALLENGERS.

The lead-up to this America’s Cup has definitely been long and ideally began on June 26, 2017, when Team New Zealand beat Oracle in Bermuda and Luna Rossa presented, with the Circolo della Vela Sicilia, its new challenge by becoming the Challenge of Record, i.e., the team that has the right to discuss with the defender the rules of the game for the next edition.

The concept of the new boat, the AC 75, proved to be very complex right away. It is not so much a matter of budget, as the America’s Cup has always been a very expensive challenge, and the world’s paper money has certainly not gone into extinction. The complexity of AC 75 is mainly technological. Developing these boats required very precise skills and also a certain degree of imagination on the part of the designers who had to deal with something completely unknown. This process has discouraged many potential challengers, but it is actually something physiological. To date, there are not many people in the world capable of designing and driving a vehicle like the AC 75. This first edition will serve as a flywheel for the future, on the experience that will be developed today by current teams new challenges will be born for future editions.

The three challengers of the rest are of the highest profile. In addition to Luna Rossa there will be American Magic representing the New York Yacht Club and Ineos Team UK representing Royal Yacht Squadron Racing, the club on Cowes Island from where it all began nearly 170 years ago. There are no “buffer” challengers, or teams running with older generation boats already destined for certain elimination as was the case with the old IACCs.

At the helm of the U.S. team is that Terry Hutchinson who, while he has certainly not had any luck in his America’s Cup participations (with America One in 2000, Start&Stripes in 2003, with Team New Zealand in 2007 and with Artemis in 2011), has been an undisputed leader in the world of professional circuits, Tp 52 in particular, and one of the world’s most highly regarded sailors for many years now.

What then to say about Ben Ainslie at the helm of Ineos? He is simply one of the most successful sportsmen of all time with his five Olympic medals. There is no room in this Cup for unions that go in search of unlikely budgets, or that aim to have technology borrowed from other teams. This is a Cup for the best only, and it will be once again, and more, no holds barred. Never more than in this edition will participating count for nothing. Less than zero. All teams in the regatta are in Auckland to try to win.

The Old Pitcher has made its history on the cult of winning leaders; those who want to win it must get used to winning, right away, without excuses-those are for losers. If you don’t win you are not good because you participated, if you don’t win you simply lost.

So it has always been, and so it will be even more so this time.

WHERE THE RED MOON CAN REACH

The question to ask is where can it go or where does it “need” to go? For the first question, we cannot have the answer until we start seeing the first regattas.

Where it “needs” to go based on the genesis of the challenge instead is a consideration that can have a meaningful answer. Luna Rossa is in its fifth challenge, and participated in creating the concept of the new boat, and its class rule, together with Team New Zealand.

He made a boat 1 that seemed, according to insiders as well, to be decidedly more centered than those of Ineos and American Magic, which in fact in their second AC 75s completely changed design while also taking up some of the concepts seen on the first Italian boat.

Net of this theoretical advantage, winning the Prada Cup, thus going on to face the New Zealanders in the America’s Cup match, must be the goal of Max Sirena’s men. If it did not arrive needless to hide that the Italian expedition would be disappointing, but as there are many variables at play it is a possibility that must be taken into consideration in a challenge as complex as the America’s Cup.

Everything will also depend a lot on the first regattas. Starting to win will get used to winning and put pressure on opponents. If, on the other hand, Luna Rossa were to begin its campaign by chasing, the path may become more complex because it would mean having design gaps, but this would not seem to be the case.

Max Sirena was provided with the team he desired. It took the best of Italian sailing, with a mix of veterans and youngsters coming from Olympic classes. He can count on two helmsmen like Francesco Bruni and James Spithill who fear no comparison.

Ashore he has the likes of Vasco Vascotto, in the design team men like Martin Fisher and Mario Caponnetto who have proven to be two of the cutting-edge designers in recent editions of the Cup. Luna Rossa has what it takes to do well.

Winning the America’s Cup, however, remains a titanic feat. It is such a complex game, depending on so many factors, that the success rates still remain minimal. The absolute favorites for this are always the New Zealanders. They are playing at home, they have pulled their new boat out of their hat, they have not suffered all the downtime of the other challengers in the move to New Zealand, and they will be the last to really uncover their cards as the others struggle to stay in the game.

THE DEFENDER

As we mentioned, the New Zealanders came up with the concept of the boat and developed the class rule, in collaboration with Luna Rossa. They race at home and have on board, as always, some of the best talent in world sailing.

Not defining them as the absolute favorites would be a serious mistake. Team New Zealand’s Boat 1 seemed, along with Luna Rossa, to be one of the most centered. Boat 2 seems to be a synthesis of the solutions undertaken by the other challengers and in the practice races it proved to be “dominant” over American Magic and to some extent over Luna Rossa, net of possible pre tactics. Time is on the side of the Kiwis. The only hiccup on the way to the Cup was the boat’s forced stop in Italy after the cancellation of the Cagliari races that cost the team several weeks of inactivity. Otherwise, the defender certainly had a lot more time than the challengers, who had to deal with “moving” two boats from one hemisphere to another as well as the logistics of organizing such a complex move.

Net of all this, it should be noted that the climate around kiwis is not as serene as usual. First the leak of data by two “spies” telling of hypothetical misuse of government funds. Then the accusation by a Brazilian designer that he copied the AC 75’s foil handling system.

Meanwhile, the Covid 19 crisis to make matters more complex, with a New Zealand government less inclined than in the past to bestow the funds needed to put up the challenge. In short, not all that glitters is gold, and the risk of some cracks in the team’s tightness is there. How this may have had any real impact on the crew’s development of the boat is still too early to tell.

Stars Peter Burling and Balir Tuke are the “core” of the team, as well as some of the main architects of the Bermuda victory. Burling has yet to find a helmsman in the America’s Cup who can seriously challenge him, will that happen in this edition?

THE CUP NEWSPAPER

The Sailing Newspaper returns in its“Cup Newspaper” version-a format that has made our magazine famous since the glorious editions of the 1990s. We used to send you the news practically live via fax, but today we have decided instead to devote a live space on our social and web channels where every day, after the races, our journalists and their guests will retrace the highlights of Luna Rossa’s races with interviews, comments and dedicated images. We will start on day 16, with a preview episode; we will announce the schedule shortly, with times, where to follow us and all the key players who will speak.

THE CUP ON LIVE TV

After we saw the San Francisco edition on Youtube and the Bermuda edition on pay TV or on unlikely “pirate” streams, the America’s Cup is back where it deserves to be, on TV, broadcast free to air worldwide, effectively repudiating the “pay TV” model that Oracle had envisioned.

Patrizio Bertelli had promised it and it finally went through, in Italy we will see it on Rai 2 or on Sky Sport for those who have subscriptions.

It’s about time we would say. Indeed, there can be no success on the general public for such an event without a proper television production.

Not least because in this pandemic-plagued 2020 it will in fact almost be a Cup behind closed doors given the difficulties of entry into New Zealand, and the support of TV, and the media in general, will become critical to bringing the races home to the public. Will we thus relive the same emotions of Auckland 2000?

Expectations are high, but it must be understood that this will be a very different Cup from the one we all remember with great fondness. Times have changed, sailors and boats have changed, sailing and the world in general has changed.

First of all, it will be necessary to understand this Cup, and for this, too, television support is essential; it will help make it understandable. To return to exciting an audience on a grand scale will then require the exploits, in our case, of Luna Rossa. And who knows, in a few weeks on social media and in bars (when we can get back to them all over Italy) there will be talk of foiling and appendages. Dreaming is permissible. In anticipation long live the America’s Cup, the only sporting event in the world that resembles nothing else. And long live Luna Rossa, who can make us dream again. We would need it.

Mauro Giuffrè

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