37th AC Louis Vuitton, 2024: II. Pre- Regatta Jeddah, Saudi Arabia 29.11. - 2.12.2023 - First time in history the world’s top sailing teams will race on the Red Sea - NAANII GLOBAL Luxury/Quality Family Lifestyle MAGAZINE 'en Vogue' - NAANII GLOBAL Quality & Luxury Family Lifestyle - MAGAZINE 'en Vogue'-

ICONIC 37th America's Cup Louis Vuitton 2023/2024:
TRAINING  HARD, DELIVERING RESULTS IN VILANOVA, JEDDAH, BARCELONA, NEW YORK, CAGLIARI, SAINT-TROPEZ  AND AUCKLAND

Following Vilanova's I. Pre-regatta in September this year, It’s a truly international picture in the 37th America’s Cup at the moment with the sailing teams training hard around the globe on Tuesday,

- preparing II. Pre-Regatta Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 29.11.-2.12.2023 -

deep into their development work with key, crucial design decisions being weighed-up, tested and analysed to the nth degree. These are the hard yards of professional yachting at the pinnacle of the sport and the very best in the business are really putting the hours in.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has drawn the attention of Marine sports enthusiasts around the world and especially the city of Jeddah which has been selected to host a leg of the 37th America’s Cup later this year. The world's top sailors will converge on the Red Sea in late November for the second Preliminary Regatta, leading into the main event set to take place in Barcelona in 2024.
The world’s oldest and most prestigious sailing competition, dating all the way back to 1851, will be coming to the middle-east thanks to the Saudi Sailing Federation. It will be hosted at Jeddah Yacht Club & Marina, a state-of-the-art facility on the Red Sea that has already proven its ability to host world-class events, having accommodated the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix since its first edition in 2021. This comes in line with the great efforts of the Saudi Sailing Federation and the Ministry of Sports which are keen on promoting marine sports in the Kingdom to achieve the goals of the vision 2030.

As Dalton explains: “One of the great advantages of Jeddah is you can sail very close to the shore because the water is so deep," he explains. Normally you’d need to get out in a boat to watch, but because the teams will be sailing so close to the shore, spectators will be able to watch entire legs of the race from the Corniche.”

He also added: “Sat in those stands could be the next great Saudi sailor, and that’s the key motivation behind the Saudi Sailing Federation’s bid for the event.”

Dalton believes that there is a golden opportunity for growth in the region. “When you consider the youth population, along with the azure waters of the Red Sea, the conditions are perfect for the growth of all types of water sport.” And through the joint efforts of the Ministry of Sports, the Saudi Sailing Federation and the America’s Cup, we will work side by side to achieve the objectives of the Ministry of Sports, increase participation and elevate the standards of sailing within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

With the AC40 boats passing by the Corniche at speeds of 90+ kph, the Jeddah regatta is shaping up to be a thrilling experience for spectators and sailors alike.

Swiss Alinghi RedBull Racing first to train at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia this week.

Meanwhile back in a puffy, shift, patchy Italian Cagliari, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli had the hammer down when they could for a truly scintillating second day of testing with their new Wing 04 against the Wing 03 that they have looked very comfortable on in recent tests. Today the design team would have been happy with what they saw as Jimmy Spithill and Francesco Bruni drove Luna Rossa like they stole it whilst the Flight Controllers pushed through the cant variables and beyond. An interesting moment, caught on the recon video, saw that cant pushed just an inch too far with the outer wing tip of Wing 04 breaking the surface and very quickly sending the boat into a hobby-horse that was rapidly corrected by the sailors.

Overall, the Italian team kept Luna Rossa firmly end-plated as low as they dared both upwind and downwind on a day where straight-line testing was very much demanded. On that metric they looked blisteringly fast but through some of the tacks and gybes there’s an understandable cautiousness as the team get to grips with the new tech and the nuances of the new foil.


Watching on from the Chase Boat eagerly with his nose in a phalanx of computers, Chad Turner, one of the team’s key Performance Analysts gave his assessment of the day saying: “I'm interested in just making sure the sailors are sailing the boat consistently tack to tack, you know we're trying to test different things so we want to make sure that we're testing apples to apples instead of apples to oranges so I'm focused mostly on trim, heel, cant angles, boat speeds, wind angles those sort of basic performance parameters…We rely heavily on checking everything in against the VPP’s so the VPP's are the targets that we sort of reference on the water and we're always comparing to those numbers and every night we prepare reports to compare how we're doing against the VPP targets.”

Assessing the day, Chad added: “We definitely ticked off everything that was on our list for today. It was a tricky day with pretty puffy conditions, we started on the J2 then went to the J1.5 and back to the J2 and sailed through a lot of puffs and lulls so it was it was a tricky mistral, all quite puffy but in the end, we got through the whole checklist so that's good.”

Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli were very much the real deal today on the Bay of Angels. Top performance.