The Luna Rossa team have been involved in the America’s Cup almost continuously since Auckland in 2000 (left) – only being shut out of the 2010 Deed of Gift Match and stepping away from the 2017 edition after falling out with the other challengers over a reduction in size of the new cats from 65ft to 50ft, when the Italians were well advanced with development. But Patrizio Bertelli wasn’t finished, throwing his weight behind Team New Zealand’s 2017 challenge, supporting development and lending them skipper Max Sirena – whose experience with the current Cup holder certainly boosted the team’s strong effort this year
Divorce is often messy and this was always going to be a
rough ride. Let’s take a quick step back and look at the history of this last
Cup between Luna Rossa and Emirates Team New Zealand. Every- thing was so wonderful at the start, the honeymoon period. Then things got rough, and then nasty. Really nasty.
For the Italians it has had a long build-up: l 2003 LR had a bad experience being the challenger of record, not so much from the defender ETNZ but from the other challengers accusing them of ‘feathering their own nest’. (Bullshit, I was there.) l 2017 LR becomes the challenger of record (being next in line) after the puppet challenge excuses itself after setting out the rules. LR, remembering the past, makes up a challenger of record committee of all the challengers with equal votes. Then the challengers gang up on LR and radically change the boat size. Bertelli is thinking, if they can change this, then it will never stop, so says ‘if you do that, I will leave’. They changed the boat size and Bertelli left. l 2017 Max Sirena and some of the LR team join ETNZ as a united front against Oracle. Grant Dalton, as a challenger, teaches Max ‘you hammer the defender in every way you can. Never let up’. (Careful what you teach your students!) l 2017 LR is on the secret boat at the finish of the last race, and gave the envelope over.
It all started off just fine – joint press statements said we were going back to monohulls, the sailing crew were going to pull the sails up and down at the marks. Back to real yacht racing. Then something strange happened. Disputed for sure, but in the
else to jump the queue. 2) You have been chosen because we think the same. We want the same things for the next Cup. Maybe we have not defined every detail but we are happy to go arm in arm for this venture. This brings me to the next, just a little bit touchy subject. History
shows there have been two types of challengers locked away in secret for the ‘envelope handover’. One’s like you and me, who need to work out the details but agree on the philosophy. The other is a puppet challenge. Oracle has been a big proponent of the puppet challenge. As a
defender the puppet challenge is great. The defender pulls the strings and the puppet dances. Nice! It’s not 50/50, the defender gets total control, which boats are sailed, who can sail, how many sails you can build, everything really. The good news is the Cup has a clear direction with no negotiation necessary. Golden rule stuff. The America’s Cups in San Francisco and Bermuda both had
rules that were dominated by the defender. How else could we have the defender joining in the challenger series, or the challenger starting the America’s Cup one race down on the defender, as in Bermuda? You know the best part of a puppet challenge? After the puppet
throws in the towel, quits and leaves the event, even if that is a day or a week after the defender and puppet agree on the rules, every other challenger has to play by those rules. They can’t change them unless the defender allows it. For the next three years! Great for the defender but the challengers… mmmm, not so good. Make no mistake, you’re not a puppet and we are both working
together in good faith, for the good of the Cup. Still, things can melt down. As seen in this last Cup between Emirates Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli.
end Luna Rossa agreed to the foiling monohulls we saw last month in the Cup. Team owner Patrizio Bertelli was clearly not happy, then the race course disputes, and he said/she said… big cracks, more like fault lines, started appearing in the relationship between the challenger and defender. In August 2020 things just fell apart, so got really nasty. Picture a divorce of the messiest kind. Only lawyers talking to
lawyers. It turned to all-out war, on every front. And somewhere in all that both sides decided, bugger this, from now on I’ll just look after myself and only myself. Change the wind limits, rules on delays, race courses, dates of races, all in the last weeks of the Cup. Mostly fought out in the press. Meltdown, as big as Chernobyl. Bring in the cement buckets…
oh dear, too late. ETNZ wins the Cup and Luna Rossa will not be the challenger of record next time. The Royal Yacht Squadron on the Isle of Wight, it’s you (represented for this column by you). So now we dance. Not to fear, you and I are reasonable people, not going to let it
come down to that. But, in both our interests, let’s talk about nation- ality rules. You have a strong national team and I don’t want my boys being
poached as they were in 2000, so how about we agree to nationality rules as to who can sail on the boat. And make it retroactive so it really screws any want-to-be challengers. Don’t worry, we can do that, we can do anything we want as challenger of record and defender. Now allow me to take my defender hat off, and as your coach
whisper two truths, one reality. The defender and the challengers both have (and agree on) the same goal: to win the cup for themselves. If that means all-out war, then so be it. Keep that in mind. Back to our negotiations, how are we going to manipulate the rules (to my advantage!)?
q SEAHORSE 37
SHARON GREEN/ULTIMATE SAILING
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