Intriguing and outstanding racing on the Bay of Naples

The choice of the Bay of Naples as the venue for the Louis Vuitton 38th America’s Cup was fully vindicated today on day two of the Preliminary Regatta with some of the best fleet racing ever seen in the modern history of this outstanding sporting event. It was tricky. It was tight. It was all action on a day that saw four fleet races completed and the schedule right back on track ahead of the final day on Sunday.

A packed Race Village down on the Lungomare Carraciolo were treated to a spectacle that exceeded any in world sailing this year. The Naples city backdrop was spectacular, whilst on the water it was fireworks from the fastest sailors in the world with near-misses, a capsize, and thrilling close-quarters action.

From the get-go it was Luna Rossa 1 – the Principal Team led by skipper Peter Burling alongside co-helm Marco Gradoni – that streaked into a lead and never looked back. The overnight overall leaders were punching speeds in excess of 47 knots on the bear-away manoeuvres at the windward gate in winds that neared the upper limit of 21 knots at times. It was a powerful opening performance from the Italian team and the question on everyone’s lips shoreside was: “who can match them?”

The answer to that question came in the second, third and fourth races of the day as La Roche-Posay Racing Team, with world class sailors Quentin Delapierre and Diego Botín, came to the fore showing a turn of pace that they had been promising all week. It was an electric performance in what was Race 4 of the regatta, with the French squeaking ahead of a very tight pack of boats at the first windward gate after a stellar start and streaking away to lead around every mark of the course. Quite simply it was sensational sailing, and whilst the winning gun was taken, what emerged was a coming force in the regatta in the form of Emirates Team New Zealand.

Overnight, the Defenders of the Louis Vuitton 38th America’s Cup, were tied on points for second place overall and knew that Saturday was the day they needed to perform. After an opening race to forget, Race 4 saw them fight through to second and lead a charge for the rest of the day that sees them cement their place in the crucial top two. Once eight races are completed on Sunday, the scores are tallied and the top two boats go into the winner-takes-all Match Race final. A second place, just ahead of Tudor Team Alinghi, put Emirates Team New Zealand on a charge.

However, come Race 5, drama entered the Preliminary Regatta in another super-tight race where even the most seasoned observer would have found it hard to pick the pecking order at the first windward gate. Once again it was La Roche-Posay Racing Team who out-thought the others and with perfect positioning, bore away at the port marker gate and leapt out into a lead as others fell off the foils, infringed in the boundary zone around the gate and came close to contact. Fortunately ,no harm was done but penalties ensued from Chief Umpire Richard Slater and the pack was shuffled.

No such problem upfront. La Roche-Posay Racing Team could pick their lanes, pick the pressure and ease around the course, stretching into an impossibly strong lead that was out to 300 metres after two laps of the 1.4 nautical mile legged course. At the final windward gate, the French were ahead of Emirates Team New Zealand’s Women & Youth team, led by Jake Pye with Erica Dawson on co-helm, and looked set for a second win of the day.

It was not to be. In the cruellest of ways, on the final gybe onto the layline to the finish, a pulse of some of the strongest wind of the day down the right side of the course, saw La Roche-Posay Racing Team ride impossibly high on the foils, ventilate, lurch into the wind and slow-capsize. The audio onboard captured the team’s frustration and there was nothing they could do as the fleet screamed by at speeds in excess of 40 knots.

The biggest beneficiaries were the Kiwis who kept calm, gybed inside the French and then aced the final layline to score a very popular win and set a marker for what is looking like being two magnificent events in 2027 – the Women’s America’s Cup and the Youth America’s Cup. Onboard, the sailors were delighted. It was a win of outstanding quality from a very hot fleet. Behind the Kiwis, Luna Rossa 1 overtook Emirates Team New Zealand (Principal Team) on the final downwind and scored a vital second palce to further cement their place at the top of the standings having fought hard through the mid-fleet for the points.

Come the final race of the day, and Race 6 of the regatta, all eyes were again on La Roche-Posay Racing Team to see if the capsize had any effect on their confidence. They answered emphatically. After a brilliant start, the French worked the right side of the windward leg before calling the perfect tack back to cross the fleet and establish a small lead by the windward mark. Emirates Team New Zealand gave chase with GB1, the Challenger of Record, in close proximity.

It was a tussle of epic proportions between the French and Kiwis on a tactical and shifting racecourse in the late afternoon where the breeze was starting to falter in the middle of the course. At roundings there were moments where the lead appeared to swing in favour of Emirates Team New Zealand but a perfect final windward leg where Delapierre and Botín read the breeze supremely, saw the French bear-away at the final gate into an unassailable lead of over 250 metres. There was little the Kiwis could do other than consolidate second place and all eyes were behind with a tight pack of boats that saw Luna Rossa 1 emerge after some incredibly good boat positioning. The French took the win at a canter, the Kiwis secured second and their place in the standings whilst Luna Rossa ends the day in a commanding position at the very top.

Speaking afterwards, skipper Peter Burling reflected on a busy day of variables saying: “We’re trying to learn and improve as much as we can. We definitely made some massive mistakes today, but I think the way we can just reset is great and try and get the next shift. All three of the races when we were behind, we got right to the front and then unfortunately in that second one we dropped right back again. But yeah, I think it just shows you that it’s so shifty and dynamic out there that any of these boats can put together an amazing race and any of the boats can have big problems as well.”

Margherita Porro, skipper of Luna Rossa 2 who is hopeful of guiding her team to the Women’s & Youth title here in Naples, took positives from a difficult day saying: “For sure it was tight racing, especially at the top gate. We had some marginal situations. But yeah, we are a new team, and we struggled a little bit today. I think we were fast, but it’s hard to take everything together to connect all the points. But we did some good starts. We were in the pack, so it’s a good starting point.”

Winners of the second race of the day, skipper Jake Pye and trimmer Serena Woodall were pleased with the outcome with Jake saying: “So, it really was a really well-constructed race, I think, from us as a team. We’ve really been trying to put it together as best as we can, and we feel like it’s taken us about as long as it has to figure out the racecourse, and it felt good to be able to put it all together... it really is, for us, just keeping it simple and making sure we can get the craft across the line. But throughout the race, as it opens up, you take the opportunities where they present themselves, and we did just that.”

Serena further added: “I think as a team, we know we’ve got the potential and it’s just all about having a clear lane off the start, keeping it simple, and really knowing our roles. And in that race, we really put it all together, it was up-range, and we just had to keep it close because with the French, that race we were with them on that downwind. And then, yeah, a bit of fortune for us, I guess, when they capsized.”

Diego Botín, co-helm onboard the stand-out performer of the day, La Roche-Posay Racing Team took all the positives on a day where they looked to have pace and poise saying: “I think we’ve had very good moments in the past few days as a team, and obviously today, but we haven’t raced together a lot as a team and the more we race together, the more in line we are, the better decisions we take. And we managed to amplify those good moments today and together with good speed and good boat handling also. Shame about the capsize, it obviously wasn’t ideal, but look, overall, we are very happy with the day and confident, which is important.”

Jason Saunders, the starboard trimmer behind skipper Quention Delapierre, reflected positively on a day that had it all for the French team, saying: “I think it’s probably one of the most fun days I’ve had in racing. These boats, in reasonably flat water and good breeze, are a force to sail and the fact that it was coming off the shore it was really shifty and so very tactical. It was important to be really proactive in getting on top of those shifts so yeah, when you’re not trimming and you’re on the leeward side, you have time to talk and to look around, and I think it’s really important, that input, to help the guys that are trimming the boat at that period and make the right next decision. Like Diego said, we’re just sailing more together now and we’re trying to learn our roles and it’s coming together much nicer, which is pleasing.”

Ellie Aldridge, co-helm on GB1 with skipper Hannah Mills OBE, put the team’s performance in perspective saying: “It was a very frustrating day for us. I think we felt like we were sailing really well at times. There’s a lot of good points to take away from it, and a lot of good learnings, but just felt like we couldn’t really bring it all together. Like, it felt like we should’ve been able to. But It was an amazing day of racing, really. Like super tight, loads of position changes, and it was all really down to the end of the race. You’re still in it, even if you don’t think you’re in it. At the end of the day, it’s really easy to be frustrated with days like today but actually we are still learning from this event. Like, yes, we want to do well but the end goal isn’t this event, it’s next year.”

Dylan Fletcher, skipper of GB1 that had an up and down day, spoke more broadly about the regatta, saying: “It was really tough, close racing. Obviously a number of key teams had some good wheels – unfortunately we weren’t one of them. So we had a few issues as well with the board sucking down and stuff like that, which we’ll have to look into, but I thought it was a fantastic day to showcase the AC40s.”

The AC40’s certainly shined in the perfect conditions on the Bay of Naples and as the sun sets, the scorecard indicates the possibility of a re-match of the first Preliminary Regatta in Sardinia where Luna Rossa’s Principal Team and Emirates Team New Zealand fought it out for the overall crown. It’s on the cards, but in sailing anything can happen and Naples PR2 could go down to the wire. Two final races tomorrow to decide the top two boats for the Match Race final.

Stay tuned. Naples is serving up a festival of sailing at the Louis Vuitton 38th America’s Cup Preliminary Regatta.