37th America’s Cup: the engines are starting to warm up

We are 165 days away from the start of the 37th America’s Cup and a little more news is starting to leak out about the teams and suppliers. Here are a couple on Alinghi Red Bull Racing and Persico Marine. (here all our posts on the America’s Cup)

America’s Cup: Alinghi Red Bull Racing receives its AC75 BoatOne

Alinghi Red Bull Racing collects another first. After it had bought Te Aihe, the first AC75 to touch the water back on 4 September 2019, from Emirates Team New Zealand to kick off its 37th America’s Cup challenge, it is also the first of six teams to finish building its next-generation AC75. 

BoatOne arrives

And it does so with BoatOne, the result of the design team led by Marcelino Botin, which, after leaving the Ecumbles yard on Lake Geneva on 28 February, reached the team’s base in Barcelona on 5 March. 

A week-long journey along the roads of Switzerland, France and Spain with the hull wrapped in film to ensure maximum protection but also maximum secrecy of the forms ended in Barcelona with the transfer of the hull onto a raft that reached the quay in front of the team’s base to be immediately transferred to the hangar. Here all team members unpacked the hull and signed the banner signed at the start by the construction team as a ‘receipt’.

A great emotion

“When I saw the boat arrive on the barge I felt really excited,” commented Arnaud Psarofaghis, skipper of Alinghi Red Bull Racing. “And to see it in one piece after unwrapping it was definitely a relief! Having the boat in our shed triggers a lot of ideas and details that we have to finalise. The next big step for us is to get the boat ready for its first sail!” Now Alinghi Red Bull Racing’s BoatOne will be completed with the assembly of all equipment and manoeuvring and control systems. A job that will take about a month. The first outing at sea is in fact scheduled for 5 April. 

America’s Cup: Persico Marine is the Official Supplier with the booms for all the teams

After supplying the AC75’s foils to the teams competing in the 36th America’s Cup, the “arms” of the boats of the six competing teams will also be “made in Persico Marine” for the edition being held in Barcelona.

“For Persico Marine” said Marcello Persico CEO of Persico Marine “this is an important confirmation, which highlights the work of research and development, the quality of the shipyard and the value of the production team. The confirmation of the role of Official Supplier also rewards the commitment and investments made by the shipyard in recent years both in terms of the construction process and technological evolution”. Arms are a one design element of the AC75 and the organisers once again entrusted Persico Marine with a construction requiring the highest quality and precision to create an all-carbon-fibre construction weighing 450 kilograms. 

A complex project

“That of the Arms is a beautiful and very complex project,” continues Marcello Persico, “where we have to combine the many aspects of a challenge that is not only technological and sporting. And to meet the challenge, in 2019 Persico Marine created a very special ‘test bench’ with which, in front of the heads of all the teams, an arm was brought to breaking point. A spectacular test that amply confirmed the design and construction data on which the AC75’s arms are built.

With its confirmation as Official Supplier of the 37th America’s Cup, Persico Marine adds an extra piece to its long presence at the world’s most famous regatta. A presence that began in 1990 with the collaboration, thanks to the equipment of an innovative five-axis cutter, with Raul Gardini and the challenge of the Moro di Venezia.

Emilio Martinelli