Luna Rossa’s Dominant Preliminary Win in Naples Signals a Real Shot at Italy’s First America’s Cup On the waters of the Gulf of Naples only weeks ago in September, Luna Rossa gave Italian sailing fans something they had been waiting to see: a reason to believe their team may win. The Italian team dominated the America’s Cup Preliminary Regatta, finishing ahead of defending champions Emirates Team New Zealand 71-56, a significant margin, and continued to outpace them in the final race, ending the weekend with victory. For a team that has spent its entire history chasing sailing’s most coveted trophy, the America’s Cup, it was an encouraging sign of what might be possible when the series returns to the same bay in 2027. This match, on Sunday, Sept. 27, was the exact same lineup as in 2021, when the Italians faced the defending champions of New Zealand and lost in the final race. Now, this dominant preseason win against the highly ranked, three-time defenders breathes life into the country’s team as it prepares to challenge for the cup on their home waters of Italy. But for anyone unfamiliar with sailing, the road to that final is not exactly straightforward. There are challengers and defenders, who compete for a Louis Vuitton Cup before there is an America’s Cup. There are fleet races, round robins, semifinals and a repechage. However, the basic premise is simple. One team will ultimately win. Dating back to 1851, the America’s Cup has a long history of racing, making it one of the oldest sporting trophies in the world. Its goal is simple: narrow down the field of competitors until one remains to challenge the defender of the cup. Unlike most sports, where each team must qualify for the final match, in this competition there is only one qualifier, who must challenge the defending champion head-to-head, with the winner crowned the America’s Cup champion. In 2024, at the 37th Cup, Emirates Team New Zealand took home the win for the third time in a row. Now, in the approaching 2027 season, at the 38th America’s Cup, the rest of the competitive field will attempt to dethrone them and claim the champion title for themselves. The racing structure is complex, with many sessions and types of regattas for the teams to show a variety of different techniques. Beginning with the preliminary season, teams arrived in Naples and began to train on September 24-27. Here, they engaged in multiple sessions of fleet racing, a format that has every team on the course at once. For preliminaries, they raced in a smaller version of the boats that will take them to the regular-season races in 2027. These smaller vessels are called AC45s, and are hydrofoiled boats, meaning they are controlled by long limbs that lift the bottom of the boat from the water, allowing racing to happen at high speeds of up to 100km/h. This is a similar rate to the larger AC75s that will be used in the regular-season races. In the preliminary races, the Italian team Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli came out as an underdog, as they have been chasing the cup for years with minimal success. After an incredible run in 2021 where they were the runners-up, they have remained out of reach of the cup. Now, as the competition comes to their home of Italy, the hunt is on. Once the races began in the Gulf of Naples, their quest seemed to suddenly be within grasp. After a dominant showing beginning on Thursday the 24th, they easily outqualified the rest of the field with 71 points, ahead of the 56 scored by the New Zealand team, the defending champions. This dominance continued into the final race, a two-team competition between the New Zealanders and Italians, in which Luna Rossa quickly drew ahead and held a sizable lead for the entirety of the race. In the aftermath of this showing, the piers of Naples were electric: it seemed the possibility of Italy claiming the Cup in 2027 was a very reasonable conclusion. However, the question remains as to exactly how that will take place. Now that the preliminary is completed, racers will return to their home countries to begin training on the larger, faster AC75 boats that will engage in the Cup races. Until May of 2027, teams have an allotted season to practice on the water and prepare. In May, the challengers will return to Naples and kick off a five-stage event to determine who will be the reigning champions of the 2027 season. Stage 1 will begin on May 22 and continue into the 23rd. This is the fleet-racing stage, where all seven challengers will partake in a total of three races a day to kick off the event, and teams will be awarded points according to finishing placement. This will be the first time fleet racing is an aspect of the America’s Cup, and will test racers’ spatial awareness in a fast-paced, high-stakes format. Stage 2 will begin only a few days later on May 26 and continue until June 11, in which teams will race in a round-robin format consisting of 21 total matches. This entails that each pair will race each other once per round, with three rounds total. Upon completion of this stage, the top three ranked teams will progress directly into the semifinal, while the lowest three enter the next stage. Stage 3 consists of repechage racing, a type of race where the participants who are in the bottom of the group have a second chance at qualifying for the semifinals. It will take the form of three-man fleet racing, where only the top team will join in the semifinal races. This will commence June 12, immediately after Stage 2 finishes. Stage 4 is the semifinal, where only the top two teams of the four will progress. Teams will race head-to-head from June 16 to 20, with the two teams that reach five wins advancing to the final. Stage 5: the Louis Vuitton Cup Final. It is in this one-on-one race where the winner of the best-of-seven series earns the right to challenge for the America’s Cup. Lasting from June 26-July 4, the result of this race will establish who will challenge the reigning America’s Cup champions. The America’s Cup Race will be the final and most important event. In this, Emirates Team New Zealand will face off against the Louis Vuitton Cup champions, in another best-of-seven series on July 10-18. With a long winter of preparations ahead, there is ample time to learn the mechanics of this series. In the wake of the preliminary races, the uncertainty of whether Luna Rossa is a competitive team has diminished, yet until the boats take off in May, the extent of their dominance is unknown. That said, they have demonstrated through their performance that they are legitimate contenders. There was speed. There was coordination. Most importantly, there was the sense that Luna Rossa could become a genuine threat by the time the America’s Cup arrives in 2027. With this in mind, the prospect of an Italian team competing in Italian waters becomes a compelling reason to begin to prepare to arrive in Naples this May, and watch what may be the reclamation of a trophy that has eluded Italian teams for over twenty years.  Ph: ErreRoberto / Shutterstock.com

Ph: ErreRoberto / Shutterstock.com