Justin Chisholm Takes a Look at the Melges 24 Sailors Competing in the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series

The Louis Vuitton Pacific Series, held in Auckland during late January and early February this year, was welcomed by the global sailing community as an opportunity to get a significant number of America’s Cup teams out on the racecourse. Entries from ten teams were accepted including the ‘reigning champions’ Alinghi as well as local favourites Emirates Team New Zealand. After two weeks of action packed qualification rounds, Alinghi won through as the ‘Challenger’ to face Emirates Team New Zealand in a best of five final. Alinghi helmsman Ed Baird had mostly looked unstoppable in qualification and sure enough won the first race of the final. However Dean Barker and his crew of hometown heroes on Emirates Team New Zealand then stunned the Swiss with a hat trick of consecutive wins to take the inaugural Louis Vuitton Pacific Series trophy by a margin of three races to one.

Undeniably this regatta attracted many of the best sailors in the world and the list of sailing rock stars wandering the dock in Auckland was exhaustive - Russell Coutts, Ed Baird, Dean Barker, Ben Ainslie, Peter Holmberg to mention but a few and of course the Melges 24 class was also well represented at this premier event.

Legendary Italian match race helm Paulo Cian, also a regular on the European Melges 24 circuit, along with his tactician Tomasso Chieffi were the key names in the afterguard on the South African entry Shosholoza.

Flavio Favini, familiar to us all as helmsman on Franco Rossini’s 2001 World Championship winning Blu Moon, was also in New Zealand where he was acting as coach to that archetypal Italian campaign, Luna Rossa. This team were AC finalists when the America’s Cup was held in Auckland and had clearly lost none of their good will with the locals. The spectator fleet enthusiastically cheered them on as far as the Challenger semi final where they were narrowly beaten by Russell Coutts’s BMW Oracle Racing. Whilst Flavio was clearly enjoying his time in Auckland, he also told me that he had been very disappointed to have missed out on the Melges 24 class at Key West and gave his assurance that he would be back in ‘his favourite boat’ very soon.

2004 Melges 24 World Champion, France’s Sebastian Col was also flying the flag for our class in Auckland. Seb is now a major name on the World Match Race Tour and at the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series was the helmsman for the French Patagaus K-Challenge who made it as far as the Challenger quarter finals before succumbing to Ben Ainslie’s British Team ORIGIN.

There was a strong Melges 24 link with the team who were universally recognised as the team who both surprised and impressed most at the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series. In a competition filled with ‘corporate’ teams made up of sailors from a variety of nations, the Damiani Italia Challenge stood out as a proudly Italian squad. Formed from two great Italian sailing teams, the Dabliusail Project and well known Melges 24 sailor Giovanni Maspero’s Italia squad, this new brand new AC team had reigning Melges 24 World Champion Francesco Bruni as helmsman and counted Blu Moon regular Stefano Rizzi amongst the crew.

The Damiani Italia Challenge really were the new kids on the block and had only been able to put in limited practice time in Valencia before arriving in Auckland. However what they lacked in match practice they more than made up for in passion. In the early rounds they came close to taking some major scalps and only missed out on beating the favourites Alinghi due to gear failure.

In the second round they really hit form beating Luna Rossa and Team ORIGIN (twice) to claim a place in the Challenger semi final against Russell Coutts and BMW Oracle Racing. This match proved to be the end of their impressive run when they lost a prestart skirmish to Coutts who kept the Italians in a vicelike cover for the remainder of the race.

Speaking to team principal Giovanni Maspero after the event he told me that he was pleased with the team’s performance and that a fourth place in a prestige event like this would help with their ongoing conversations with potential sponsors. Maspero also confirmed that despite the distractions of America’s Cup campaigns he was looking forward to racing aboard the Joe Fly Melges 24 in the near future.