«I was 27 years old, I went to Castiglione della Pescaia, I hopped onboard with Vasco Donnini, and I never got off». This is how Patrizio Bertelli tells us about the beginnings of his passion: sailing. In the nautical world, he is known as «The Boss» and the inventor of Luna Rossa, while in the land-based world he is the CEO of Gruppo Prada, one of the world’s great fashion players. The years with Donnini are carefree, and during those years he hang out with another great friend and master, Renzo Guidi. Young Bertelli cultivates a strong passion that will explode powerfully later: the America’s Cup. Bertelli sails and owns a beautiful boat designed by Sparkman & Stephens, called Ulisse, with which he sails everywhere. He really loves her and will never leave her. However, he designs a new and larger Ulisse, a 30-meter for longer vacations.
He chose German Frers to design it, and it was during their meetings that German uttered the fateful phrase «You are the right person to launch a challenge». It is the evening of February 3rd, 1997, the next day Patrizio is already at work to launch his first challenge: the boat will be called Luna Rossa, the helmsman Francesco de Angelis, the designers Germán Frers and Doug Peterson. That was the first of seven challenges: Luna Rossa in Auckland won the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger selection regatta and got the right to race the Match. New Zealand newspapers called her the «Silver Bullet». The excitement is high but Team New Zealand led by Peter Blake and Russell Coutts is unbeatable.
«Peter Blake sent me a letter», Bertelli says, «writing that the secret of winning the America’s Cup was to do it over and over again until you win: we are beating that path». In the 37th edition, starting in August in Barcelona, Bertelli will be participating for the seventh challenge, once he retired so this will be sixth time on the water. The most frequent before him was Sir Thomas Lipton with his Shamrock, five challenges.
Bertelli comments, «The fastest boat always wins. You think it’s you, but maybe there is someone who has done a better technical development than you. There are no other secrets».
After that first venture, Luna Rossa returns to Auckland in 2003, the year in which Alinghi proves to be the fastest but also, often dimly remembered, the most versatile and reliable hull. In Valencia in 2007 he is still the protagonist and meets in the challengers’ final the lifelong friends/enemies Team New Zealand who are a little faster. Just enough.
Patrizio Bertelli in 2012 is the first Italian to enter the America’s Cup Hall of Fame. The decision was taken by vote of a group of wise men, the characteristics required by those who grant it are a mix of good intentions, sportsmanship and technique. There are not only owners on the short list: in addition to the Vanderbilt and Bond there are sailors, technicians, inventors. The important thing is to have given something to the great trophy, and in the right spirit. The Hall’s home is in the Herreshoff Marine Museum in Rhode Island, a historic America’s Cup field. The Herreshoff family has marked so many victories with its designs and construction.
In 2013 Luna Rossa is back with a new skipper. Patrizio Bertelli puts Max Sirena in charge: in the 2010 Deed of Gift challenge, he was responsible for BMW Oracle’s wing beating Alinghi. There is a strong core of former Luna Rossa members on the team. Max Sirena recounts: «Patrizio Bertelli had the lucid folly to give me the management of the team, and I first felt a bit like a thief who took possession of someone else’s visions, then I realized that I should try to realize them, without spoiling them too much». The two have actually known each other for a long time, ever since Sirena came up as bowman on one of his vintage boats. Max continues: «Patrizio loves competition, even when he is on his classic boats he always wants to push hard, whether on board or ashore. He wants to win, not just take part in the regatta. He would never do so many challenges just for commercial reasons. He loves sailing and he loves the America’s Cup, the day he loses the drive toward technique and competition maybe he will stop. I would really like to see the day when he has the Cup in his hands».
The challenge of 2013 in San Francisco was created in partnership with New Zealand, being very close to victory. It was raced with AC72 catamarans, and the two teams shared the design and many experiences. The plan was to take part in the following edition to aim for victory.
A sporting drama unfolded in San Francisco: the Kiwis with victory almost assured were remounted by Oracle, which retained the Cup and decided on a following edition in Bermuda. Luna Rossa began to work, but in April 2015 Patrizio Bertelli announced the abandonment of his fifth challenge. What happened? The Americans changed the rules by forcing the «friendly» teams to vote to reduce the size of the boats, which were to be 65 feet. The Italians quit and part of the team merged into Team New Zealand, Max Sirena along with a group of designers. The goal was to take the Cup away from the Americans and run it in a more traditional way.
«In sports as in life, one cannot chase the compromise of compromise of compromise», Bertelli declares, «Sometimes painful but clear-cut decisions are required. Those decisions alone can make people aware of the drifts of a system and thus lay the foundations for a future of legality and respect for sports values».
Emirates Team New Zealand wins in Bermuda and the Cup flies to Auckland for the second time in history. Luna Rossa is Challenger of Record and collaborates in writing the Protocol, meaning rules that include a new boat, the monohull foiling AC75. More: Prada also becomes title sponsor of the selection races and the Match, a situation in which the good relationship always had with the New Zealanders soured. Bertelli recounts: «We criticized the foiling catamarans, saying maybe we could go back to a simpler boat. Participation in such complex events is not an economic problem. The difficulty lies in being able to put together a technical team that knows the project. If you don’t have the right 5/6 people you can’t do it. Now, however, a new generation of technicians has been formed».
When they launch the first of the two Luna Rossa hulls in Cagliari, it surprises with its shape: «They will immediately copy us». This is Patrizio Bertelli’s prediction, «because we have the boom inside the boat and not suspended. And then, the shape of the hull with the skeg running the entire length».
In Covid times, Patrizio could not witness in person the great performance of his boat and does so by keeping the team on their toes with phone calls and calls. Somehow, it is as if he were there... Jim Ratcliffe, the wealthy owner of Ineos, arrived instead: he quarantined himself by posing as a «critical worker» crew member of his megayacht Sherpa and is pedaling every day (he also owns a cycling team that lines up the Italian Filippo Ganna). But Ratcliffe was no better: the difficulties created for Bertelli are a sign of the fierce competition with the Kiwis, who place obstacles over everything. It’s the America’s Cup.
On the night of the crushing victory over Ineos Britannia and the winning of the Prada Cup he declares: «The joys and excitement are the same as twenty years ago. Back then I knew almost nothing about the Cup. Now I have learned a few more things. Again, we had a very Italian team in men and technology. We are used to complaining about what we don’t have at home and instead we are a country that when we believe in it and set out to do something we do it well. As this challenge and this team have shown».
Bertelli would like to return to something more traditional,
closer to the beautiful vintage boats he likes to discover and restore. Like Vanessa, an old IOR boat, and Scud, an American one-design from the 1900s that he often personally helms
The start of racing against Emirates Team New Zealand is spectacular: Luna Rossa, lining up two helmsmen, James Spithill and Francesco Bruni, gets off to a strong start and controls well the opponent who was sure to have superior speed. Winning three races in the Match against the Defender gets the best score achieved by an Italian boat in the history of the Cup and one of the best ever achieved by a non-winning America’s Cup challenger.
In the preface of the book written at the end of 36th edition he writes: «Despite the initial doubts and reservations expressed by many, the new AC75 class boats have turned out to be a happy choice: we have rediscovered the breathtaking Match Races typical of the America’s Cup with hard-fought starts crosses at very high speeds with the boats just a few meters from each other and with boats never seen before. Minimal detachments, record audiences and resumption of an interest that seemed to have died down».
In his heart, Patrizio would like to return to something more traditional, closer to that sailing welded into the memory of the man who discovered the world under sail, like that of the beautiful classic boats he likes to discover and restore. Such as Vanessa, an old IOR boat, and Scud an American one-design from the 1903s that he often personally helms. When he’s not around the helmsman is Torben Grael. «Vanessa is by Carcano, a designer I really respect, he’s the one who understood the theme of wide boats, with ballast in the bilge. Light displacement. I do well at the helm, however, when there are good ones on board I leave it to others», Bertelli says.
This year the Cup returns to Europe, edition number 37 is raced in Barcelona, it’s second time with AC75s. Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli is ready. The team has been training with 12-meter boats, a LEQ 12 and an AC40 before launching the 10th Luna Rossa in 27 years of challenges. Built by the Persico shipyard, she is loaded with new features. Predictions? «Everyone will be strong in Barcelona, that’s for sure», Bertelli says. True.
Photo credits: © Studio Carlo Borlenghi / Gilles Martin-Raget
