Day two of the Louis Vuitton 38th America's Cup Preliminary Regatta in Sardinia traded the high-drama wind of the opening day for something considerably more demanding: a shifty, unpredictable breeze that built, stalled, and rebuilt without warning. Reading pressure correctly across the course proved decisive. With multiple teams racing new combinations and sailors stepping onto the America's Cup stage for the very first time, conditions were unforgiving, and the class of the leading teams became impossible to ignore.
Luna Rossa 1 Women & Youth had carried the overnight lead into the morning, but the day began disastrously. A botched manoeuvre in the pre-start of race one knocked the boat clean off its foils, and a telemetry failure compounded the damage, forcing the team into recovery mode at precisely the moment they had hoped to be dictating terms at the front of the fleet.
Further up the leaderboard, one of the day's most absorbing confrontations was playing out between Luna Rossa 2, skippered by three-time America's Cup winner Peter Burling, and Emirates Team New Zealand, skippered by Nathan Outteridge. The two boats ground away at each other in what amounted to a sustained, exhausting arm-wrestle, and it was Emirates Team New Zealand who eventually broke clear. Solid results across the remaining two fleet races left the Kiwis sitting second overall, with their place in the final well within reach just two fleet races away.
The moment that defined the day came in race two, where Athena Pathway put together a performance that drew gasps from onlookers. Calm and unhurried when rivals erred around them, the team produced some of the most controlled front-running of the entire regatta, eventually crossing the line 37 seconds clear. On fully equalised one-design AC40s, that margin is extraordinary.
Sam Webb, who trimmed for Athena Pathway that day at just 20 years of age, was barely able to conceal his delight afterwards. "I think I was grinning pretty hard after that," he said. "Cracking race, and we just sailed well as a team, and the guys did a great job. So yeah, everything came together. It's a real privilege to sail with all these guys, and great to see the training's paying off."
Port helm Ellie Aldridge, an Olympic gold medallist, gave a vivid account of what it felt like to lead a fleet through such unpredictable air. "It was definitely conditions where when you're ahead and you're able to sail your own race, it felt a lot more comfortable," she said. "We tried to sail as well as we could but it was very changeable, but you should've seen Sam's face at the end. He just had the biggest grin!"
Athena Pathway's victory was the product of five years of work under the leadership of Hannah Mills OBE, and the crowds gathered in the race village in downtown Cagliari responded with genuine warmth and enthusiasm.
Luna Rossa 1, meanwhile, spent races two and three reasserting themselves with authority. Marco Gradoni and Margherita Porro brought the boat home second in race two before winning race three outright with a decisive move on the final leg. That performance reclaimed the top of the overall standings and reinforced their status as the regatta's dominant outfit. Emirates Team New Zealand 1 pushed them hard at every turn, with Luna Rossa 2 a constant presence in the mix.
Gradoni, just 22 years old, spoke after racing with a composure and sharpness that belied his age. "Today was not an easy day," he said. "We managed to do well after the big mistake that we did in the first start. So I'm proud, it was not easy. About the final, I think we still have to do a good race. That's our goal. We are going to be still focused about the fleet races, and then if we have the chance to win the final, I think we're going to get ready to perform on the match race."
When the conversation turned to Emirates Team New Zealand, the current Defenders of the America's Cup, Gradoni was characteristically direct. "I think they are the best in the world, but also us, we are the best in the world," he said. "So it's a war between Titans now. They have a lot of experience. They are by far the best in the game, but we have our chance, we have our skill as a team, and we're going to prove to them what we are capable of. For us, it's like a big honour, a lot of pressure, but we love it. I love pressure. I love to have this privilege."
For much of the rest of the fleet it was a grinding, attritional day. The variable breeze had crews cycling through all three of their jib headsails as conditions surged and dropped away, the anticipated sea-breeze never properly establishing itself.
One of the encouraging subplots of the week has been the Emirates Team New Zealand Women & Youth team, who have slotted in just behind the leading trio with commendable consistency, rarely drifting from the front of the mid-pack. Skippered by foiling dinghy star Jake Pye, with Erica Dawson on co-helm and Olympian Josh Armit and Serena Woodall on trim, the team sit fourth overall.
Woodall spoke to media after racing with a grounded perspective on what the regatta means for the team. "We came into this with no expectations, and it's all just been about learning every race and growing as a team and doing as well as we can," she said. "For us, it's more about the long term, solidifying some learnings and seeing what we can take forward into the rest of the campaign, and just consistency and getting better race by race."
Asked about the wider significance of her involvement in the campaign, Woodall was thoughtful. "It's an incredible opportunity, and it feels like it's a really cool transition time in the sport," she said. "I guess taking out the physicality aspect of the roles onboard means they can open up to having more females onboard, and that's not a disadvantage anymore. So I think it's really about bridging the gap at the moment, and Emirates Team New Zealand's been doing an awesome job at that and really getting us involved, trying to upskill us as much as possible. So super grateful for the opportunity, and I hope I can solidify it for generations to come."
La Roche-Posay Racing Team had a day of sharp contrasts, flashing genuine potential at times while struggling to string results together cleanly. Olympic gold medallist Diego Botín offered a candid assessment of where the team stands. "The spirit of the team is really good," he said. "We have some really good moments, and the reason why is because the team is working properly. We've only done under 25 days on the water after today in these boats, so it's something normal. We're obviously frustrated because we would like to be higher up in the standings, and we would like not to be making those mistakes, but it's part of the process, and we're happy where we are."
Tudor Team Alinghi endured the worst of the day's rough patches, their afternoon including a capsize after a mis-communication during a downwind gybe. Co-helm Phil Robertson did not dress it up. "We were fighting the boat all day and just trying to find some solutions to it and to our issues and just couldn't quite find it," he said. "And then as sailors as well, we just really struggled to get in the groove. It was tough all around."
The hardest day of all belonged to GB1, the Challenger of Record. Their racing was over before it had even begun, the team forced to retire from the day's competition after losing control of the flap on the port side foil. In a subsequent statement the team confirmed: "After investigation, it was quickly identified that the AC40 race boat was not sailable." Shore crew worked through the night attempting to resolve the issue, with the team aiming to return for the final two fleet races of the series.
Sunday now looms as one of the most consequential days in the modern history of the America's Cup. Luna Rossa 1 Women & Youth stand on the cusp of a result that would astonish the sailing world. Emirates Team New Zealand will arrive ready to fight in the opening fleet races, and whoever earns a place in the final will then face an entirely separate challenge: a clean, winner-takes-all match race with six boats cleared from the course, settling the destination of the first Preliminary Regatta here in beautiful Sardinia.
Fly-bys are scheduled just metres off the waterfront at 2pm along the FanZone Lazzaretto, while the race village along the Via Roma in downtown Cagliari continues to hum with activity. Cagliari is the centre of the Cup world this weekend, and the spectacle has something for everyone.
Sunday will be epic.
