Last foiling days in Cagliari for Luna Rossa

The Luna Rossa sailing team is enjoying the last few days of sailing in Cagliari as it prepares to move to New Zealand, where the Prada Cup will get underway in just under five months.

The team has been located at the Molo Ichnusa in the city since 2018, the place where the AC75 Luna Rossa took shape thanks to a collective effort in which engineering and calculations were combined with the precision of artisan craftsmanship.

Dozens of connections, hydraulic and electronic components, and complex on board systems were installed within the carbon hull, while the sailmakers assembled the sails with maniacal precision. It was an intense period and Cagliari proved to be the perfect city thanks to its warm and welcoming inhabitants, but also in terms of logistics, and above all the ever-perfect weather conditions which meant the team did not miss out on precious sailing days, says the team.

From early September the team will begin the transfer to Auckland. Boat 1 will be loaded onto a cargo ship that will take about two months to arrive in New Zealand.

Boat 2, meanwhile, is being finalised. There were some ‘physiological’ delays due to the lockdown period which slowed the process down, but the efforts of the entire team and the design department, coordinating remotely, made it possible to make up lost time.

The second AC75 is set to leave the Persico Marine shipyard in early October and will immediately be loaded onto an Antonov, one of the largest cargo aircraft in existence, ready to sail in the Gulf of Hauraki in New Zealand by the end of October. 

Everyone is very happy with the new boat, says the team, which is the result of the multitude of data collected and studied over the past months, but also of the experience gained through countless hours of navigation on Boat 1, which was launched in October 2019 and on board which the team has continued to train in the waters of Cagliari up until now.

“It is not easy to leave a city like Cagliari where the whole team lived for three wonderful years,” says Max Sirena (skipper and team director). “We received a special welcome, and everyone has shown their affection and support. We will begin the transfer to Auckland in a few days, where we will open another chapter of this adventure, which will see us even more determined and focused on the final goal.”