For Alinghi Red Bull Racing, the upcoming end-of-year celebrations will be “Spanish”. The Ernesto Bertarelli’s fourth challenge at the America’s Cup, although this time teamed up with Red Bull, is in fact the only challenger who since last summer has opened his own base and carries out his training sessions in Barcelona, the city which from 22 August 2024, the day of the opening ceremony, will host the 37th America’s Cup. (Here all our posts about Alinghi)
An apt choice
A choice that allowed the sailing team to sail with the AC75 purchased from Team New Zealand and renamed BoatZero and the design team led by Marcelino Botin to acquire information that will enter the project of the boat with which Alinghi Red Bull Racing will race the Challenge Selection Series scheduled for September 2024.
Alinghi Red Bull Racing: Andrea Emone a telemetry engineer
A job that has seen at work one of the many women who are part of the new challenge of the Société Nautique de Geneve. Her name is Andrea Emone, she is 26 years old, from an Italian family but born in Valencia where he crossed paths with the America’s Cup as a young girl.
And it was passion at first sight. “I supported Alinghi. When I grow up, I said to myself, I want to be part of the design team of a Cup team”. Graduated in aerospace engineering, a past as a sailor from Tecno and RX boards to TP52s and Sail GP she is the responsible for telemetry, detection and management of all the data collected by the sensors placed on board.
“The sensors are many, really many. They are applied wherever you need or think to put. I receive data from many scenarios and I try to answer the questions of the design team, to give conclusions and also to give advice on how we could find solutions to what the data tells us. But I’m just one element of the team who, having done competitive sailing, have the curiosity but also the patience to seek the synthesis of the problem”.
Alinghi Red Bull Racing: Lodovica Genghini, the Technical Program Manager.
A job that of Andrea Emone who puts her in contact with another woman of the Alinghi Red Bull technical team: Lodovica Genghini. Italian, born near Milan, 27 years old, a family of sailors, Lodovica also worked aboard a charter ketch, then the choice of yacht design and a degree from the University of Southampton. From there a series of experiences, including that in the studio of Juan Kouyoumdjian, in the Southern Wind Shipyard and at Nautor’Swan of the construction of the ClubSwan 125 Skorpios before his resume did not attract the attention of Alinghi Red Bull Racing where now is Technical Program Manager .
“I coordinate and collaborate on the scheduling and timing of the components of the entire project. For example, the experience in building Skorpios was important in acquiring sensitivity and knowledge in weight control. A fundamental element on an AC75 and not only from a technical point of view but also from a cost point of view. In summary, I deal with the management of the project planning acting as a connection point between the design, the problems of the installations on board and the construction of the single AC75 (the Protocol requires that each team can build only one boat, ed).
But it will be necessary to reconcile research, development, the times of the design team and the experience acquired at sea, and those of the actual construction as well”. In short, the day when people will say: now it’s time for the boat. It will be, says Silvio Arrivabene, General Manager and head of Technical Operations, in the spring in the meantime, however, the Alinghi Red Bull Racing team is time to prepare for the first Christmas and the first New Year in Barcelona. Then there will be those of 2023. Then, everything will depend on who will raise the Auld Mug and where they will decide to run the 38th Americas’ Cup.
Emilio Martinelli
