Ivo Rovira / America’s Cup
BACK AT IT IN CAGLIARI
After their dominance in Naples, Luna Rossa returned to the AC75 after almost a month away from sailing the ‘Silver Bullet’ with a range of modifications and upgrades that skipper Peter Burling alluded to the Recon Team as being “probably hard for you guys to spot but there’s a lot changing in the background and a lot of hard work going into trying to make sure we’re fast enough come next year.”
It was a split session in Cagliari with a weather front moving through the training area and is it transitioned, the Italian team paused for a while to let it pass. Training in the Mediterranean in the early autumn is a concern for all the European-based teams and is where the meteorology teams synchronise with the sailors and shore team to extract the maximum hours from each planned session.
Ivo Rovira / America’s Cup
The Recon Team noted that in the first session: “The boat sailed shorter boards and looked slightly unbalanced especially downwind. As the team had warmed up, some aggressive bear-aways to roundups were sailed on port tack before tacking and switching to longer boards. In the manuvers which followed the boat appeared consistent beside a touch-down hitting a wave in a tack perhaps due to a ventilated wing during entry.”
Ivo Rovira / America’s Cup
Onboard the team rotated sailors with Marco Gradoni in the port helming pods giving way to Ruggero Tita for the second session and the initial trim team of Umberto Molineris and Gigi Ugolini saw Vito Bissarro swap in for Umberto at the end. Maria Giubilei in P5 and Peter Burling were consistent through the day with Peter skippering in the starboard pod and Maria in the port aft pod.
Ivo Rovira / America’s Cup
One small incident occurred in the final session with the carbon pole carrying the LiDAR cameras snapped after a crash down following a sharp exit from a tack and a rogue wave causing the damage. Technicians came onboard to inspect what the Recon Team described as a ‘hole’ and the jib track fairing before securing everything with tape so the sailors could complete the session.
Sails were down by 5.15pm and Luna Rossa recorded approximately 106 minutes of foiling time with 24 tacks and 23 gybes. They are back with a bang in more than one sense.
