How Max Sirena saved Luna Rossa with a piece of scotch
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A hundreds-of-millions boat, a 55-knot speed flying technology concentrate, saved by good old-fashioned cheap duct tape. Not just any scotch, but “sailboat” scotch that is used to preserve the hull, the deck of chafing and also to patch the sails.
How I save you Red Moon
This happened on the fourth day of the Louis Vuitton Cup finals (the regatta that determines who, between Luna Rossa and INEOS, will earn the right to challenge the New Zealanders in the America’s Cup) in Barcelona(here how it went, 4-4 and ball in the middle between Luna Rossa and the British).
In very short order: at the first windward mark of today’s first race, in the pogata Luna Rossa makes a heavy touch down and the Italian boat’s race ends there.
impactThe impact takes out a panel on deck and the jib rail covers open due to nose diving, and Luna Rossa’s problem looks serious: with a hole like that in the deck, think of how many gallons of water can get in and damage the sophisticated hydraulic and electrical equipment that controls foils and mechatronics on board.
It is only 19 minutes to the start of the second race.
Cold blood and elbow grease
There is little time to put the boat back together for race two.
A makeshift repair is urgently needed to avoid losing this race as well.
You all saw it on TV.
To “get his hands dirty” comes in a great hurry aboard Max Sirena. with scotch with which the team secures the damaged portion of the deck.
Luna Rossa’s team director and skipper, a man trusted by Patrizio Bertelli, puts his own spin on patching up the damage.
Max, 51 years old from Rimini, is an old sea dog and knows how to get his hands on all kinds of boats(as he had told us in this interview, he loves shipboard work).
Even in the America’s Cup, the apogee of high technology, the situation is saved by great sailors.
Given the victory that came in the race following the repair, that of Max Sirena and the men of Luna Rossa is a double feat.
Onward and upward.
And hopefully without any more messes.
When in the America’s Cup you have to get your hands dirty.
This is not the first time in the America’s Cup that such situations have occurred, where all that is left to do to save these technological behemoths is to get their hands dirty with hub jobs.
That’s what the New Zealanders had to do in the America’s Cup final in 2003….
We are reminded of the 2003 America’s Cup final (the one in which Emirates Team New Zealand lost the “old jug” to the Swiss of Alinghi): in the first race, characterized by strong winds, due to an obvious design error the New Zealand boat, tilted to windward, takes on water, lots of it, from downwind.
All that is left to do is to “rough it” with lots of windward-leeward to limit the damage.
Thanks to this, New Zealand manages to hold on (except then to smash the mainsail base…). Eugene Ruocco
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