AC Preliminary Regatta Naples: Race by Race, Start to Finish

Nine AC40s. Eight fleet races. One final. The second Preliminary Regatta of the 38th America's Cup ran 25–27 September on the Bay of Naples, the course that hosts the Cup next year. Here's how it played out, and where it was decided.

Practice day: Luna Rossa show their hand

Luna Rossa won all three practice races, with leads of up to 500 metres. Burling and Gradoni started conservatively and sailed through the fleet.

ARC Team USA placed second in their first outing. GB1 arrived already on the back foot, after a collision with an Alinghi chase boat in training.

Day 1: long wait, short fuse

An Atlantic front came through overnight with rain and thunderstorms. Four starting attempts failed. The breeze finally settled at 12–16 knots from the northeast, and the first gun went at 4:40 pm.

Race 1. ARC Team USA. Melges took the lead midway up the first beat and was never passed. GB2 finished third.

Race 2. La Roche-Posay were over the line early. On the bear-away to restart, the bow dug in, the rudder came out, and the boat pitch-poled. Luna Rossa won from start to finish, with Alinghi second and ETNZ third.

GB1 later found a side panel missing from their foil arm, and they had raced with it. That explains a lot.

At the end of the day Luna Rossa led by 5 points, with six boats within 3 points behind them.

Day 2: 18 knots and no room for error

The northeasterly held at around 18 knots all day, with gusts. Four races were sailed, the schedule got back on track, and the crowd on the lungomare topped 65,000.

Race 3. Luna Rossa led from start to finish. Over 47 knots on the bear-away at the windward gate.

Race 4. La Roche-Posay led from the gun, with ETNZ second. Luna Rossa took a penalty at the start after a protest and finished sixth, their worst result of the week.

Race 5. The race of the regatta.

• At the top mark, GB1, GB2 and Luna Rossa Women & Youth all came off their foils within inches of each other. All three were penalised.
• Luna Rossa had to luff hard to avoid the French, fell off the foils and dropped to last. They came back to finish second.
• La Roche-Posay built a 300-metre lead, then ventilated on the final gybe and capsized.
• ETNZ Women & Youth gybed inside them and took the win.

Race 6. The French shore crew righted the boat in about 12 minutes. The team went back out and won the next race, holding off ETNZ.

Overnight standings: Luna Rossa 51, ETNZ 43, Alinghi 38.

Day 3: control

The wind came in an hour late, then settled at 10–14 knots on flat water.

Race 7. Luna Rossa won. ETNZ held second under pressure from the French, which put them into the final with a race to spare.

Race 8. Luna Rossa won again, 29 seconds ahead of La Roche-Posay. ETNZ took an umpire penalty at the start, went from first to last, and recovered to seventh. Alinghi, third overnight, faded after the first beat. The French took third on the podium.

The Women & Youth title came down to the last run. ETNZ and Luna Rossa finished level on points, and the Kiwis crossed ahead in the final race to win the tiebreak.

The final: decided off the line

In the pre-start, ETNZ sat to leeward and looked to have control. Then they tacked for the right, and the tack was slow to build speed. Burling kept his speed, picked his moment, tacked and covered.

From there it was a textbook cover: ETNZ pushed out to the boundary and kept in dirty air on every leg. Luna Rossa won by 17 seconds. They didn't trail at a single mark all day.

Final standings, after 8 fleet races

1. Luna Rossa, 71
2. Emirates Team New Zealand, 56
3. La Roche-Posay Racing Team, 48
4. ARC Team USA, 44
5. ETNZ Women & Youth, 44
6. Luna Rossa Women & Youth, 44
7. Tudor Team Alinghi, 44
8. GB1, 42
9. Cobham-Ultra GB2, 36

Final: Luna Rossa beat Emirates Team New Zealand.

What the racing shows

Starts decided races. Race 1, Race 4 and the final were all won or lost in the first minute. Two penalties at the start cost ETNZ and Luna Rossa places they couldn't get back.

One manoeuvre can cost the regatta. The French won two races and had the speed to reach the final. Two capsizes kept them out of it. Alinghi were second at the top mark in their last race, then a bad gybe dropped them into the back of the fleet.

Recovery counts. Luna Rossa went from last to second in Race 5. The fleet was tight enough that no race was over at the top mark.

Consistency beat speed. Four boats finished on 44 points. Luna Rossa's lowest result of the week was one sixth place.

That's the same debrief any fleet can run. Look at your starts, your worst manoeuvre, and the leg where you lost the most.

We can't wait to open the races in kTool.