Why Luna Rossa is already in history (thanks guys!)

Let us also touch iron (or wood, as the British say). Let’s shake our croissants, vote for San Gennaro, don’t venture into predictions. The challenge is long, very long. The New Zealanders are very strong. But the fact remains that in the waters of Auckland Luna Rossa, winning his second regatta, he wrote a very important page in the history of Italian sailing.

Never had any blue team gone so high: never had anyone managed to win two America’s Cup races. The record stood at one victory: the one that Gardini’s Moro di Venezia, with the great Paul Cayard at the helm, managed to wrest from the Americans of America Cube in the 1992 final (which then ended 4-1) for the Yanks of Bill Koch and Buddy Melges.

Add to that the fact that Francesco Checco Bruni is the first Italian helmsman to win a match in the Cup., we understand very well that the almost entirely “Made In Italy” feat (boat built in Italy by Persico Marine of Nembro, lots of Italian companies on board, almost all-Italian team with rare exceptions-one, very important of course, is co-helmsman Jimmy Spithill) set up by Patrizio Bertelli with his friend/dolphin Max Sirena is already accomplished.

We are now at 2-2, just coming off a heavy defeat in match 4. And who knows how it will go in the coming days. But in the meantime, thank you Luna Rossa. Thank you Bertelli for trying for almost 25 years now, driven by a magnificent obsession, even stronger than that of Sir Thomas Lipton, who five times tried to win the Cup without succeeding. Thank you for Checco Bruni’s Macaronic English. Thanks for Jimmy Spithill’s swear word in Italian at the end of the first round of the AC Match.

Thank you for the cheering you have been able to unleash as a true “national team”-my neighbors, pure sailing laymen, come to me to ask how the regattas are going. And like them, so many people. Thank you for bringing sailing to newspapers and TV, out of its niche. Thank you for the many kids who, this year (Covid permitting) will sign up for sailing courses in the wake of the enthusiasm you have created-this is sure to happen (I, for example, started in Optimist in 1993, after my parents were enraptured by the Moro adventure).

I’m going to be rhetorical but … however it goes it will be a success.

Eugene Ruocco

ps: Sentimentality aside, we will talk about today’s two regattas today at 1 p.m. live on The Cup Newspaper. Guests of Bacci Del Buono and Mauro Giuffrè will be Luca Bassani, David Ingiosi, Giulio Desiderato, and Federico Albano. The player is below