Italy wins Women’s America’s Cup

Italy’s Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli beat Britain’s Athena Pathway to win the inaugural Puig Women’s America’s Cup in a winner-take-all final race. Both teams excelled in the 12-team qualifying series, finishing tied in the final stage to advance. The tightness of the race continued their parity.

A nervy start from the Italians saw them enter the box late and it was decision time for Athena Pathway on starboard whether to get aggressive or gybe away and lead. The British elected the latter and then set up for their final approach to windward – hoping for a speed advantage to control the race.

However, from the very outset, it was Giulia Conti, skipper of Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli and starboard helm, who eked out crucial metres off the line, to tack at the left boundary to gain the early control. From there she and her Italian crew – co-helm Margherita Porro, with trimmers Maria Giubilei and Giulia Fava – never relinquished the lead over the next six legs.

Athena Pathway – led by Great Britain’s most decorated female Olympic sailor Hannah Mills, alongside Tash Bryant, and trimmers Saskia Clark and Hannah Diamond – were always a threat as they refused to give up and kept the deltas tight all the way around the course.

But whenever the Brits closed up, the Italians covered tenaciously and despite splitting tactics all over the course to get out of phase with their opponent, there were simply no passing lanes for Athena Pathway and no possibilities to capitalize on any leverage.

By the final upwind leg, with the wind speed at a steady 11 knots, the Italian team sailed conservatively, picking their shifts and headed for home around the final gate with a 19-second lead.

Athena Pathway were anything but done and threw everything they could at the leaders down the final run to the finish line. But a slick gybe at the port layline brought Luna Rossa across the line to secure an eight-second victory and a place in the history books as the first ever winners of the Women’s America’s Cup.

To celebrate this landmark moment in Italian sailing, the victorious youth team, led by skipper Marco Gradoni, jumped aboard to join the celebrations.

“Maybe in the coming days we will understand properly that this is a really big thing that we have done and how important it is for girls everywhere,” noted Italian trimmer Maria Giubilei. “I hope this will inspire people to follow their dreams and live the life they want to lead.”

Mills was understandably disappointed: “It’s just tough. We couldn’t quite get back at the Italians. They did a really great job of defending and it really came down to the wire on that last run, but we couldn’t quite get past them.”

Format: Twelve teams were split into two groups of six for an initial fleet race series in the AC40s. The top three teams from each side after eight races came together for four fleet races to decide the top-two crews, and from there it was a one-race, winner-takes-all for the title.