Luna Rossa youth crew dominates Race 1 as GB1 retire before the start

Maria Giubilei, Marco Gradoni, Margherita Porro, and Giovanni Santi arrived at the Sardinia Preliminary Regatta on the Bay of Angels with something to prove, and they wasted no time proving it. The Luna Rossa Women and Youth crew took Race 1 from the gun to the finish, leaving the senior teams, including the defending champions, to contest the minor placings well behind them.

The new AC38 rule requires at least one female sailor aboard every AC75 competing in Naples next year, and a commanding opening-race victory from a mixed youth and women's crew is exactly the kind of signal the wider fleet will have noted.

GB1 drama before the start

Trouble found Dylan Fletcher and Ben Cornish's squad before a race had even been sailed. A technical problem surfaced in the final minutes before the start, forcing GB1 to play their one permitted delay card at the earliest possible moment. Five minutes dockside proved nowhere near sufficient. Tools, wrenches, and laptops appeared, the effort concentrated on the trimmer's area behind the cockpit, and when outside assistance was called in, GB1 were ruled out of the race entirely. The Challenger of Record sat on the water and watched the fleet depart without them.

It was a bruising way to open proceedings for a squad that had trained hard through the Sardinian winter and looked sharp in the build-up. For Fletcher, at the helm in his first competitive outing as GB1's lead helm, the retirement arrived before the racing had properly begun.

Seven boats lined up, and none got away more cleanly than Giubilei, Gradoni, Porro, and Santi. The Luna Rossa crew crossed the start line with speed and conviction, pulling 40 metres clear of the pack almost immediately, with that gap continuing to grow.

The Bay of Angels delivered a Sardinian sea breeze ranging from 13 to 18 knots, with a building chop developing toward the right side of the course. The young crew navigated those conditions astutely, choosing the cleaner water on the left side of the upwind and executing every foiling transition with a composure that masked the pressure of competitive fleet racing. Luna Rossa has been based in Cagliari for the better part of a decade, and that familiarity showed in the certainty of every move they made on this water.

Three of the four sailors aboard carried significant pedigree into the regatta. Porro and Gradoni had claimed the inaugural Youth America's Cup and Women's America's Cup titles in 2024, and Giubilei had since added the Nacra 17 World Championship. The final winning margin still turned heads, but it was no accident.

The senior crews endured a considerably harder afternoon. Peter Burling and Ruggero Tita misjudged a lay line at the top mark, requiring two additional gybes that scrubbed boat speed at the worst possible moment and surrendered positions to boats that had been behind them. Clawing back lost ground at 40 knots on a tight, congested race track is punishing work. They recovered enough to finish, but the damage was already written into the results.

Emirates Team New Zealand had an even more difficult day. Nathan Outteridge and Seb Menzies spent the race working from behind and collected two penalties along the way, the second for failing to clear the first within the required time. Fourth place, behind both the French and the Swiss, was not the opening statement anyone in the Kiwi camp had envisaged for a four-peat campaign.

The crews that filled second and third managed clean, composed racing throughout. La Roche-Posay Racing Team, with skipper Quentin Delapierre sailing alongside Olympic 49er gold medallists Diego Botín and Florian Trittel, generated genuine pace on the downwind legs and held second to the finish. It was a strong debut for a French squad that has assembled one of the more intriguing rosters in the fleet.

Tudor Team Alinghi secured third. Paul Goodison and Kiwi match racing veteran Phil Robertson kept the Swiss boat clear of trouble throughout, and after a subdued build-up to the event, the result carried real meaning.

The Emirates Team New Zealand Women and Youth crew of Erica Dawson, Jake Pye, Josh Armit, and Serena Woodall finished fifth. Athena Pathway, GB1's youth and women's entry featuring Hannah Mills and Olympic kite foiling gold medallist Ellie Aldridge, crossed the line in sixth.

Two fleet races remain on the Bay of Angels. The Luna Rossa Women and Youth crew head into both carrying the points lead and, for now, all the momentum.