The rooftop of the Castel dell'Ovo made an unlikely press room on Thursday morning, but it worked. Skippers gathered above the ramparts with the Bay of Naples glittering behind them, ahead of the second Preliminary Regatta of the Louis Vuitton 38th America's Cup.
Talk before the conference centred on the regatta's potential dark horses, La Roche-Posay Racing Team and ARC Team USA, both making their debut in Naples this cycle. The pace-setters from Sardinia, Luna Rossa and Emirates Team New Zealand, were noticeably more guarded. Everyone had one eye on the weekend forecast, which points to changeable conditions across the range.
Andrea Tesei of GB1, regarded as one of the finest trimmers in foiling boats anywhere, laid out just how tricky the venue can be. "The most common conditions are the onshore sea breeze and this offshore north-easterly we've seen in the last few days of training. The sea breeze is actually quite peculiar. It's not like Cagliari where it was pretty stable and straightforward. Here you start with more of a 230, then swapping into a 270 and coming off this hill of Posillipo, which makes it very shifty and very gusty."
"So it's quite a playful course with shifts in pressure. And obviously also the offshore breeze is very up and down, both in terms of pressure and shifts coming out on top of the city with the heating of a really big city. And there's going to be a lot to do in terms of being on the right shift and on the right side of the pressure."
Pressure of a different sort surrounded Nathan Outteridge. The New Zealand skipper's Emirates Team New Zealand crew suffered a rare defeat in the Sardinia final, and it showed in his answer. "There's always big pressure in an America's Cup event, right? But there's only as much pressure as you put on yourself and I feel like, as a team, we've done a pretty good job of preparing for this event. The last event, we didn't really get much time in the AC40s. We were on a ship going up to Cagliari, and we got a pretty good result there, but plenty of things we wanted to work on. So, this event for us is trying to put into practice the things that we identified as areas we need to improve. And I'm sure that we'll finish here with a longer list than what we started with, which is how the America's Cup works."
Peter Burling, now skippering Luna Rossa 1 alongside a reshuffled line-up featuring co-helm Marco Gradoni and trimmers Gianluigi Ugolini and Maria Giubilei, struck a similar note to his former co-helm. "There's always pressure to perform. We've got quite a changed lineup and for the team and there's been a lot of focus on both the AC75 in this last period as well but we feel like we're in really good shape to perform this weekend. But we also feel like we're on a really steep part of the learning curve with quite new configurations. And in saying that, it gives us an amazing opportunity to learn and evolve as a team. It's really, really exciting times."
Challenger of Record GB1 sent skipper Dylan Fletcher along, still carrying a visible scar after clipping the cockpit combing in a collision with the Tudor Team Alinghi chase boat earlier in the week. He was matter-of-fact about it. "We had an unfortunate incident in training on the first practice day just ahead of the first start, where we collided with the Tudor Team Alinghi chase boat, but fortunately everyone was safe. Just a bit of minor injuries, scratches to myself. But the team's looking in good shape now. Alinghi lent us their spare foil arm to get our race foil arm fixed up, so thanks to them and we're looking forward to getting out there."
Paul Goodison of Tudor Team Alinghi described a team pulling itself together fast. "We weren't as prepared as we wanted to be going into the last event, obviously, with not so much time together on the boat and also from the shore side, not so much time together. The guys have been working incredibly hard on the shore side, and the boat's becoming more reliable and faster every day. We've had two really nice sessions here in Naples to get used to the conditions. Spending more time together as a group and a sailing team has been really important, just how we work communicating to each other, but also socially, and it feels like the team's grown a lot and quite quickly the last two weeks, and we're excited to get racing again."
Quentin Delapierre arrived buoyant. His team's AC75 had rolled into Bagnoli by barge from Lorient that very morning. But his focus stayed on this weekend's racing. "The AC40 is all about racing. I'm not sure you can make any difference compared to the top teams with the boat only. And that's all about the trust between the four guys on board and I think we are in good shape on this side with Jase (Saunders), Florian (Trittel) and Diego (Botín). That's our strengths, and we will push hard on the racing side this weekend."
Then there's ARC Team USA, debuting in this cycle. Harry Melges IV will steer from the starboard pod despite a broken foot, picked up in a freak accident stepping onto an inflatable support vessel last week. He laughed it off. "Unfortunately, I broke my foot last week training here in Naples. It's not a super cool story, but I was just stepping on the RIB and a freak accident happened. But all you need is your head and your hands to sail this boat, so it should be all good. Of course, the goal is to always be on top, but this isn't only our debut as a team, it's also the last time we're going to get to race before the big show next year. We're really going to take a good look at our processes going into this week and making sure we're taking the learning going into the big show. It would mean a whole lot (to win), but that's also not the focus right now. We're really focused on the future and making sure we're learning every day and getting better every day."
Women's foiling talent has been one of the real stories of this Cup cycle. Two of its leading names, Hannah Mills OBE of Cobham-Ultra GB2 and Margherita Porro, skipper of Luna Rossa 2 and the reigning Women's America's Cup champion, both featured at the press conference.
Porro pointed to Maria Giubilei's move onto the Luna Rossa Principal Team as starboard trim this weekend. "For sure it's a very emotional moment for us. We are a new team, but we are hungry. We want to do our best result for sure, like everyone else here. And it's also very special moment because we have at least one girl on both boats, and I think it's a pretty good message."
Mills, for her part, was simply looking forward to racing. "There's no other warm-up, really. So, for us, with the Women's and Youth, and obviously GB1 with the America's Cup in mind, the chance to get to race on the racecourse, yeah, it's amazing."
Practice racing gets underway today. From there, eight fleet races will whittle the field down to the two finalists who meet in Sunday's winner-takes-all Match Race Final.
