Kiwi top coach Hamish Wilcox spotted onboard Luna Rossa chase boat

Superstar coaches are quite a thing in this America’s Cup cycle and today Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli welcomed back to its extended family one of the best to the chase boat out in the Bay of Angels. Hamish Wilcox, the ace Kiwi sailor who has been involved in no less than four Cups, a Round the World Race and won three 470 dinghy world titles before going on to coach Peter Burling and Blair Tuke to six world titles and an Olympic gold medal in the 49er class, was spotted taking notes out on a busy, but short, session for the team.

Wilcox’s trademark style is deep-rooted in meteorology and topology and today would have been something that he would have relished with a forecast for a building breeze that failed to materialise above 12 knots. Also back onboard today, after a very credible sixth place overall at the recent International Moth World Championships in Argentina (and two notable wins on the last day) was Francesco Bruni who relieved Ruggero Tita in the port helming pod and re-linked up with Jimmy Spithill, his co-driver from AC36 in Auckland.

This is a team brimming with talent and Cagliari was the playground for a two-and-a-half-hour battle against the breeze. The chase boat was in more often than not to tow the LEQ12 up on its foils and to get a marker of what proved to be a frustrating day, the team attempted only four gybes with just one successful foil-to-foil achieved. And a rather cool move was noted and captured by the photographer today as the Italians went for a mainsail out, both foils raised, hull skid at dead stop. The ‘Eagle’ move perhaps? We’re not sure it will catch on…!

Speaking afterwards, Marco Capitani, Sail Designer for Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli gave an insight and perspective into the overall importance of this prototype sailing program saying: “…so far it has been very interesting because we can collect qualitative data in each department and obviously I can collect a lot of data from the sails and everyone else is collecting data, so we are learning quite a lot from this boat and so far I think we are very happy with the decision to build our LEQ12.”

More to come this week from the Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Team.

Onboard Today:
Helms: Jimmy Spithill / Francesco Bruni
Trimmers: Ruggero Tita / Umberto Molineris
Flight Control: Vittorio Bissaro / Andrea Tesei

Sails Used:
M1: 2 hours
J2-1B: 1 hour 45 minutes

Total Tacks: 0
Total Gybes: 4 – 1 foil-to-foil, 1 touch & go, 2 touchdowns
(Recon Notes: First self-take-off try out lasted several minutes, until tow-to-fly decision. Followed by two 2 self-take-offs and additional tow-to-fly.)

Conditions:
Wind (AM): 9-12 knots; (PM): 6-8 knots Northwest
17 degrees and sunny – high cloud.

Dock Out: 11.30am Dock-in 2pm