La Roche-Posay Racing Team has become the first America's Cup challenger to get its AC75 to Naples, closing out a journey of nearly two weeks that carried the French boat by road and sea from Lorient to its new base in Bagnoli.
The boat left Brittany on 10 September and arrived in Bagnoli on Thursday 24 September, a logistical exercise as low-key as it was impressive. The America's Cup community, local authorities and media all had eyes on the Bay of Naples as the boat came in, with the team now setting up its base there.
Moving an AC75 is nothing like a standard transport job. There are two masts to shift as well as the hull itself, and the whole load had to travel hundreds of kilometres across France before it even reached the water.
The job went to Augizeau, a specialist transport firm that had already handled this exact boat's move to Barcelona and back during the team's previous campaign.
Behind the scenes, K-Challenge's operations team spent several weeks mapping out every stage of the route before overseeing the convoy remotely. Plotting a path for a load this size through France meant identifying the tightest sections of road, working around height and width restrictions, locking in permitted travel windows, and securing the administrative clearances needed to cross each department along the way.
Five days after leaving Lorient, on 15 September, the AC75 and its two masts reached Sète on the Mediterranean coast.
From there, the character of the journey changed entirely. Road gave way to sea, with the yacht loaded aboard a barge operated by French maritime company Jifmar, which left Sète on Wednesday 16 September bound for Naples.
Eight days later, the AC75 arrived in Bagnoli, right in the middle of preparations for the 38th America's Cup.
The arrival marks a genuine turning point for the French challenger. After months based in Lorient, the campaign's centre of gravity has now shifted south to Italy, with Naples set to be home for the next phase of the AC75 programme and the yacht due back on the water in October.
