America's Cup PR2: Luna Rossa have an emphatic Final day in Naples
by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World NZ 28 Sep 09:06 BST
Skipper Peter Burling is airborne at the prizegiving - America's Cup Preliminary Regatta - September 27, 2026 © Andrew Baker/America's Cup
Luna Rossa rounded out the third day of racing in the America's Cup Preliminary Event, winning the last two Preliminary Races and then the Final.
The Italian crew looked supremely confident and in control all day, and the outcome was unsurprising.
The breeze was a no-show for the scheduled start, causing a delay of an hour, but then settled in at a perfect 10-14kts, with a flat sea state.
Due to their points lead, the Peter Burling skippered Italian team were almost assured of a place in the Final, almost before the start of racing. But just to make certain won the first race of the day by a 14 sec margin, over the New Zealand Senior team, skippered by Nathan Outteridge. La Roche-Posay (France) who but for two capsizes on the first two days of racing, would have been in serious contention for a Finals berth, were third, in Race 7, and second in Race 8.
Again, Luna Rossa was never under real threat from the French winning Race 8 by a margin of 29secs in a race of 20 minutes duration.
The Kiwis found themselves in mid-fleet and couldn't escape. But the team had a bonus, in that their Women and Youth team, helmed by Jake Pye and Erica Dawson, finished fifth, which was sufficient for them to take the Women and Youth team title.
In the Final control of the start shifted between the Italians and New Zealanders with the Kiwis sitting to leeward and appearing to have control over Luna Rossa on the final phase of the start.
However, they elected to tack for the right-hand side of the course, possibly to take advantage of better pressure or a favourable shift. But their tack was not crisp, and they took several vital seconds to get up to full speed.
Let off the hook, Burling kept his speed, had an easy start, and then picked his moment to tack, do a quicker speed build, and cover Emirates Team New Zealand.
Then it was just a matter of bouncing the Kiwis out to the boundary, and forcing them to follow back to the first mark, and in one-design boats in a consistent breeze there was no real way back for Outteridge, barring some sort of own goal by the Italians.
The margin flicked at around 12 secs for the race, easing out to 17secs at the finish.
In the overall points standings, La Roche-Posay (FRA) finished third, 8pts behind Emirates Team NZ, with four teams ARC USA, ETNZ Womens and Youth, Luna Rossa Womens and Youth, and Tudor Alinghi all on 44pts, but split into a finishing order by a tie-breaking mechanism.
The two British teams occupied the bottom two places on the fleet racing Points table. GB1, led by Dylan Fletcher will promote the PR defence line that they finished the series with a much stronger series of back end results - three 4th placings and a 6th. That piece of points-table massaging gets the Brits up to a more palatable fourth overall.
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