Coming Up In AucklandAmerica’s Cup:
In the next few weeks, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Team, the New York Yacht Club’s American Magic effort and INEOS Team UK will all battle in the Prada Cup Challenger Selection Series in Auckland to determine who will face the Defender, Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ), in the 36th America’s Cup match in March.
In San Francisco back in 2013 there were also three challengers, but it was pretty much a foregone conclusion the Kiwis would win the elimination series and face then Defender, Oracle Team USA. Luna Rossa had bought its design from the New Zealanders and clearly did not receive all the best refinements. Similarly, Sweden’s Artemis Racing had bet wrong on its design and did not have a competitive boat. The team also experienced the tragic death of Andrew Simpson during a training accident a mere three months before the start of racing.
This time, though, it’s a whole different situation.
All three challengers are strong, and calling the winner of the Prada Cup is anything but a sure bet. Challenger of Record, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, represents the sixth challenge by team owner, Patrizio Bertelli. The concept of its first boat was widely admired and thought by many observers to be the best of the first-generation AC75s. British challenger INEOS Team UK could also be tough. Skipper Ben Ainslie recruited Aussie sailor Grant Simmer—a veteran of the Aussie team that won the Cup from the New York Yacht Club in 1983 no less—as team CEO, and the effort is funded by the UK’s richest person, INEOS founder Jim Ratcliffe. Similarly, New York Yacht Club American Magic, as the team is officially called, not only has the support and tradition of the same club that started it all in 1851, but the backing of three billionaire club members: Hap Fauth, Doug DeVos and Roger Penske. Team leader Terry Hutchinson is also a formidable a sailor in his own right and leads a team that has spent more days on the water than anyone else, the Defender included.
The star of the show for the 36th America’s Cup will be the AC75 yacht. The four teams have together spent something approaching half a billion dollars developing and learning to race these revolutionary foiling monohulls, and.
