Yahoo Sports Prada’s Space-Age Bid for the Most Elusive Sporting Trophy in History
Only four countries have ever won sailing’s America’s Cup, the longest-running sporting competition in history. For more than 120 years, in fact, there were only two contenders—America and the United Kingdom—racing on average every four or five years. But the UK never won; it lost the very first race to the New York Yacht Club’s schooner the America in 1851. Sailing has come far since then.
For Patrizio Bertelli, chairman of the board of Prada and himself a passionate sailor, it’s been a long road since the first Luna Rossa race team was announced in 1997. Five campaigns to challenge for the cup have seen Prada race off against the holders twice, most recently in 2021. But like the Brits, they have never won the “Auld Mug,” as the trophy is known. Now in his sixth campaign, Bertelli’s determination is undimmed.
“It’s the difficulty of winning it that makes the America’s Cup so fascinating,” he says. “It’s unique—a difficult, complex challenge. It involves building a group of highly specialized people coming from different fields, people capable of working together harmoniously for months with very intense rhythms. It’s a difficult mechanism to set up, but even more difficult to manage. It takes perseverance, determination. You can’t give up; you must keep trying.”
For almost all of its history, the America’s Cup was, by its nature, closed off to the greater public. Races were generally held a good way from shore and were stately in pace, though not without their occasional upsets. But in 2012, everything changed with the debut of foiling. Foiling is the use of advanced physics to allow keelless sailboats to fly on carbon-fiber foils above the waves. How’s that? Think of a sailboat as a vertical airplane wing. Wind over the sail creates thrust. But the water creates drag. Lots of drag. The foils, however (space-age hydraulically powered legs cocked alternately depending on the angle to the wind), create enough lift to raise the entire hull out of the water, reducing drag to a minimum. Speeds, of course, rise exponentially—if you can keep it up on the foils, that is. It’s a knife-edge balancing act that makes for very, very good TV.
“In Barcelona, as in the last edition of Auckland, with only the rudder and the side foils in the water, these flying boats are capable of sailing at more than fifty knots,” says Bertelli. “There are no more sail changes, the crew is composed of eight people, the races don’t last more than forty-five minutes, the tactics and strategy are transformed. A whole different world, but that’s the America’s Cup, the most advanced expression of this sport.”
For Max Sirena—a veteran Luna Rossa skipper who has raced in five previous Prada campaigns and is team director and skipper of this, his sixth—the process of harmonizing high-tech equipment with a human crew is a long and delicate process. “The boat is so complex and fragile at the same time,” he explains, “so you need to learn how to use it at its best. In terms of control, we are more advanced than with the last generation of boat. There is way more technology applied to the performance of the boat. We have a better idea on how best to use the boat. The biggest challenge is us. The main thing is to be prepared. The strength of the team really comes out during the down moments. When you win, it’s easy. I spend a lot of time to ensure the team remains strong when things aren’t going our way.”
Space age and transformative for sailing though foiling is, that didn’t prevent Miuccia Prada from following storied nautical tradition back in April and smashing a bottle of bubbly over the bows of the latest Luna Rossa AC75 boat—in this case, using Cantine Ferrari’s Maximum Blanc de Blancs. For fans of the famous Linea Rossa, the red stripe that has graced Prada sportswear since the first America’s Cup campaign, a small collection of technical gear as worn by the team on the water is available online now. This is no mere merch opportunity, however. In partnership with Woolmark, a body set up to protect and promote the use of fine quality wool, the clothing is made using merino wool. It’s not perhaps the first thing you would associate with such a high-tech sport. But mindful of sustainability, Prada joined with Woolmark to exploit the natural breathability and performance capabilities of Merino for wind and waterproof sailing gear and jersey training clothes that look every bit as good on the street.
Back on the water, currently the America’s Cup boats are nudging 55 knots (or more than 60 mph) on a good day, though most sailors will tell you that it’s consistency, not top speeds, that wins races. Sailing at this level is increasingly likened to Formula 1 on water. And the fast new physics of foiling have coincided with huge advances in the media technology to cover it, a move that is bringing new interest from global audiences and luxury brands as sponsors, not least Louis Vuitton, which sponsored the qualifying round robins from the early 1990s until 2017. This year, after a brief hiatus, it’s back and this time it’s sponsoring the America’s Cup itself, too.
“I believe that today, thanks also to Luna Rossa and its six challenges, the fame and the draw of the America’s Cup have increased greatly, and holding it in Europe is certainly an added value,” says Bertelli. “This is why more and more luxury brands identify with it.”
On race days at Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli’s base in the harbor of Barcelona, it’s a family thing. Support staff, friends, and kids gather en masse on the dock’s edge, decked out in the team’s iconic silver-gray gear, waving giant Italian flags and singing along with the Italian pop blasting out of the speakers as the team makes final preparations to Luna Rossa before slipping the lines and heading out to the waters of Barceloneta. While all the teams have their fan base, none, it seems, are louder or more emotional than Luna Rossa’s. You’d be forgiven for thinking this is an Italian-only affair. But while national pride is certainly at stake, building a viable team means drawing on expertise from all over the globe.
“We have nineteen nationalities amongst us,” says Bertelli. “It is unthinkable today to want to form a group with so many specializations and with such a high-level drawing only from a single country. In the regatta, however, they are all Italians except James Spithill, who is in his fourth campaign with Luna Rossa and therefore is truly one of us.” “Jiiimmmeee,” as the mainly Italian crowd hails the Australian co-helmsman of Luna Rossa, is every bit the Italian hero as Francesco “Cecco” Bruni, his Palermo-born counterpart.
In the Louis Vuitton Cup’s fleet races, held from late August, Luna Rossa soared out to a commanding lead on points, before a late rally from veteran sailor Sir Ben Ainslie’s INEOS Britannia pipped them. But still, they were through to the semis, which began over the weekend. If, as it appears, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli and INEOS Britannia will face off in the final of the Louis Vuitton Cup, it will be a nail-biter. As we go to press, after today’s racing, the standings are 4–1 for both in their respective semis—the UK against Switzerland’s Alinghi Red Bull Racing, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli against American Magic Team USA. Each front-runner has to win only one more race to go through to the final of the Louis Vuitton Cup in late September. The semifinals continue Wednesday. And each has ample reason to hope for a win.
For more info and how to view, go to americascup.com.
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