The opening race of the Bay of Naples regatta went to ARC Team USA, but it was Luna Rossa 1 who left the strongest mark on the day, topping the overnight standings after a dominant second-race performance.
Two false starts gave way to stunning conditions: 14 to 15 knots gusting to 18, producing a short chop that had every AC40 flying against the city backdrop. Everyone lined up on starboard, nobody dared the much-talked-about port tack start, and it was ARC Team USA who found the gap that mattered.
The Americans came off the windward end one boat down, then tacked onto port in the middle of the course into what Harry Melges later called "golden" clear air. It was a sharp read from Melges and co-helm Lucas Calabrese, with trimmers Michael Menninger and Hans Henken working in tight, clipped communication throughout.
Luna Rossa 1, winners of all three practice races the day before with Peter Burling and Marco Gradoni on the helms, chased hard but could not close the gap. ARC Team USA stretched out to almost 250 metres at one stage and never looked back. The Italians had their hands full simply holding off a fast-finishing Cobham-Ultra GB2, Hannah Mills and Ellie Aldridge closing visibly by the finish.
Luna Rossa Women & Youth sat fourth throughout with no way past. After six legs, ARC Team USA found a clean downwind layline to the finish and took it with something close to ease. First blood to the Americans, whose home club, Sail Newport, had a watch-party running in Rhode Island in the early hours.
Calabrese and Melges were pleased but measured afterwards. "I feel like we have pretty good chemistry with each other," Calabrese said. "We've sailed together before quite a bit on the AC40 in the last campaign, and we also were a part of a TP52 season together, so I guess we know each other a lot. Harry is the calmer one; I'm the fiery one! It's a good mix."
Both praised trimmers Menninger and Henken. "We really believe in them," said Calabrese. "We know how good they are, and that's why we trust them so much. I feel like we have a pretty flat hierarchy on our boat, and I think if we can make that machine work smoothly, we have a big advantage. So, we're trying to use everybody's talent."
"Michael and Hans are really standout trimmers and teammates," Melges added. "And I'm also very lucky to be driving alongside Lucas. So I'm very excited for the future. I think it was a great day of sailing, honestly, with the first race. But there's also a ton of lessons we have taken from the day. There's a lot more for us to be able to do out there."
Not everyone had a clean day. GB1, one of the fancied boats coming into Naples, suffered damage that undid their race. Dylan Fletcher explained: "It was kind of how we expected it today with quite fickle breeze and we were waiting for that breeze to fill in. When it did, unfortunately, the cover plate ripped off our starboard foil, this is our race arm that we put back on after the damage in practice racing, but it was all fixed up. It was off for the first race, which is why we were struggling gybing, had no grip, had loads of leeway, going slow on port, tacking, everything. Everything other than sailing on starboard was terrible. It never rains, but it pours!"
For Cobham Ultra GB2 the mood was rather brighter. Hannah Mills OBE said: "We just felt like it sort of started clicking a bit today in terms of the comms and how we're racing the boat and just how we're sailing the boat, all feeling like it was coming together. So yeah, we just felt really like we were going fast, going roughly in the right direction, which was not easy on that racecourse."
The second race arrived in glorious Neapolitan evening light, the breeze up to 18 knot gusts and a testing swell running across the course. Drama struck immediately, with La Roche-Posay Racing Team caught on course side and scrambling to get back and restart properly.
On the bear-away to duck the line, the bow buried, the rudder popped clear of the water, and helms Quentin Delapierre and Diego Botín were passengers on a violent nosedive that ended in capsize and retirement. Everyone aboard was fine and the boat was righted quickly. During the chaos, quick thinking from GB2 skipper Hannah Mills prevented a serious collision, her raised windward foil clipping the French boat's rudder stack at the stern.
"The French were doing a big hard bear-away to restart and must have got it wrong," Mills said. "We were just to leeward and then they pitch-poled right in front of us and when it happened, obviously so fast, I just fired it up into wind to try and avoid hitting them and I think did everything we could in that moment to stop a major collision."
Racing resumed, and it was Luna Rossa 1's race from the gun. They led out to the left, snapped back on port to cross the fleet, and simply did not look back. Tudor Team Alinghi, Paul Goodison and Phil Robertson sharing the helm, kept them honest and pulled clear of the chasing pack without making a mistake.
Marco Gradoni, sharing the helm on Luna Rossa 1, sounded a warning to the fleet as the Italians topped the overnight standings. "In the second race we had a good start compared to the first one that I think we didn't manage perfectly. But yeah, we had the speed. I think the guys picked up the pace and did a really good job because it was not easy. We saw also what happened with the French and we had the speed and we just executed, to be fair. We got to the boundary, we turned first and then we know how to stay there. I think the boats are all the same and it's just about the coordination between us and the precision that we put into what we do between us four. So, we work a lot. We keep improving because we're not at our 100% but I think we're going to get there."
Behind them it was scrappy and tactical, places changing hands as errors crept in. Emirates Team New Zealand, Nathan Outteridge and Seb Menzies on the helms, showed real composure to come through on the final run and take third, just ahead of their sister boat, Emirates Team New Zealand Women & Youth, with Jake Pye and Erica Dawson sharing the wheel right on the line.
Dawson reflected on a day that left the young Kiwi crew tied with Tudor Team Alinghi overall. "I think we had a solid day. We made quite a few little errors, but overall, we're happy with the way we're sailing, and the kind of steps made forward recently."
Andy Maloney, trimming for the Emirates Team New Zealand Principal Team, sits tied for second overall going into day two and believes there is more to come. "It was pretty difficult for our boat out there today, as we haven't quite managed to put a full race together yet," he said. "We're not getting off the line that cleanly, and then we're still making mistakes around the racetrack. So, we find ourselves in difficult positions in the pack and making unforced errors and we're better than that, and we're sort of putting ourselves in difficult positions. So a little bit frustrating as a crew today overall but probably the best thing of the day is that the crew on board stayed tight as a unit, and we managed to keep positive and keep chipping away."
Further back, Luna Rossa 2 Women & Youth crossed fifth, just ahead of Mills and Aldridge in GB2. ARC Team USA, winners of race one, fumbled a mark rounding at the second leeward gate and slid to seventh. GB1, the Challenger of Record, dropped to eighth overall after their foil damage.
The leaderboard is tight at the top, with plenty still on the line as the fleet returns to the Bay of Naples tomorrow and the racing sharpens further. It was a long day on the water, for sailors and spectators alike, with a thrilling weekend still to come.
