La Roche-Posay Racing Team have become the first outfit in this Louis Vuitton 38th America's Cup cycle to get their AC75 into the Bay of Naples.
The boat travelled by sea from the team's former base in Lorient, down the French Atlantic coast and across the Mediterranean, arriving wrapped in plastic before being craned ashore at the team's new base in Bagnoli.
Naples is now home for good.
Co-helm Diego Botín, speaking after the boat's arrival, was excited about the move and the arrival of the team's AC75, a sistership of Emirates Team New Zealand's 2024 America's Cup-winning boat.
"It's amazing to have our 75 here with us already," Botín said. "It just arrived this morning. It's super hard to get such a big boat here in Naples, and it came by water. So we saw the platform with the boat this morning coming at 10:00am, and obviously then they had to go through all the paperwork and everything and now it's at the base already."
"So yeah, it's a big step forward for the team, having it here in the place, in Naples, where the Cup is going to be so far ahead," he added. "And yeah, we are also all already placed here. We have our apartments. All the team is setting up to have a good winter here and get ready for the Cup."
Asked when the boat would be ready and when the first shake-down sail would happen on the Bay of Naples, Botín said the team already has miles under the keel elsewhere. "Well, we've been sailing the boat already this summer in Lorient, so it's not far from being ready," he said. "I guess it will take some time, some details here and there, but I hope in the next month we will be in the water."
La Roche-Posay's AC75 is the first of the fleet to reach Naples. The rest of the fleet are due to follow over the autumn.
