America's Cup: Luna Rossa now level pegging with Kiwis
by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World NZ 2 Sep 10:05 BST
Luna Rossa (ITA) - Day 20 - August 31, 2026 - Cagliari, Sardinia © Ivo Rovira / America's Cup Recon
On Monday, Luna Rossa drew level with Emirates Team New Zealand in terms of days sailed - both now have 20 days of AC75 sailing in their logbooks.
The only other team sailing an AC75 - La Roche-Posay Racing Team (France) is on 10 sailing days, after losing a month following their capsize on July 7, 2026.
The Recon Unit posted no report. But they did provide a great interview with Daniel Jowett, a New Zealand instruments and rules engineer, who graduated from the University of Auckland with an MEng (1st Class Honours), where he specialised in yacht aerodynamics.
Jowett had a measurement role in the 2021 America’s Cup in Auckland, before joining Luna Rossa. On Monday, he was one of the design team rotated through Position 6, on the aft starboard side of the AC75.
"It's great to go out with such a long, smooth session" he told the Recon team's Michele Melis.
"It was really nice. Beautiful day, going through a building sea breeze, through to the other end, the sea breeze dying now. So we've seen everything, and it was great to tick off a whole lot of stuff. Plenty of hours on the water. We're able to cycle through three different members of the design team on board."
Melis, a naval architect, was asked why the team had been performing alignment checks on their AC75. (Alignment checks involve levelling up the AC75 and then checking by measurement that various components are equidistant on each side, or are in their designed position.)
Jowett skipped around the question. "Basically everything's been refined all the time, so we're always looking for incremental gains anywhere we can find them. We're just constantly checking everything, trying to get things better, do things smarter. So there's incremental gains all the way through."
Asked if there was "any particular offset in the boat which needed some correction?" "Nah, we were all pretty happy," Jowett replied.
He was more candid about the evolution of the repurposed AC75 - the same hull that the Italians sailed to third place in the 2024 America's Cup in Barcelona.
"There's plenty of development that has been done. The boat's a big change from Barcelona. Obviously, they are no longer the same boats. They've evolved a lot, but there's plenty more to come."
Asked what the take-outs were from his time observing from the back of the boat, behind skipper Peter Burling and trimmer Vittorio Bissaro.
"The interesting thing for me being a passenger today is just seeing the coordination between the sailing team and the shore team," Jowett replied.
"Everything is super smooth, super precise. We're doing plenty with the boat, throwing around in circles, and everything feels really good and locked in, and we're able to change things fast and develop quickly.
"So overall, it's pretty impressive to see. Hats off to the shore team and to the sailing team to be able to put out days like this, which are really long, hot days.
"It's been a very hot August. We've had many, many days, 40° plus here," he added.
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