Luna Rossa is a continuation team who simply never stopped working since Barcelona in 2024.
Luna Rossa have spent nearly three decades and hundreds of millions trying to win the America’s Cup. They never stopped between campaigns and have now signed superstar helmsman Peter Burling from their biggest rivals.
This latest YouTube episode of their Inside America’s Cup video takes you deep inside the Luna Rossa base in Cagliari as the team prepare for the Louis Vuitton 38th America’s Cup in 2027.
Niall Myant-Best was given (almost) unfettered access to the base and the team with key insights into the winning mindset that Max Sirena, the Luna Rossa CEO, is trying to instil to finally win the America’s Cup for Italy.
We go inside the base of the team that has been trying longest and hardest to ask if they finally have everything to win. Is Peter Burling the missing piece for this team?
One of the things Luna Rosa have that most teams do not, is the winners of the Youth and the Women’s America’s Cup in Barcelona, Margherita Porro and Marco Gradoni. But in addition to looking at youth, Luna Rosa made another move, a bigger move . . .
They went and got the man who has been beating them. Peter Burling won the America’s Cup three times for Emirates Team New Zealand. He was the man that everybody was trying to beat.
And when he left that team he joined Luna Rossa . . . Luna Rossa had been looking for the missing piece and signing Burling does feel like an important piece of that puzzle. Any team would love to have Burling, the experience, the skill, his winning streak on board.
So, is Peter Burling the missing piece for this team?
Burling . . . ‘Well, to be honest, I think it’s been pretty well publicised why. I obviously wanted to do some other sailing at the same time and have a little bit more, I suppose, understanding of what I could and couldn’t do.
And Team New Zealand very much wanted to control everything. So, yeah, we decided it wasn’t going to work.
And then at that stage, I didn’t actually think I was going to be involved in the next America’s Cup. I was pretty happy with what I’ve managed to achieve with Team New Zealand. And I was happy to do my own thing for a bit.
And, yeah, the phone started ringing actually from quite a few different places.’
The choice must have been difficult, so why Luna Rossa . . .
‘I think we’ve got such a great relationship here. Obviously, a lot of Luna Rossa was with Team New Zealand during my first America’s Cup campaign. with Max, Gelo and a lot of the other team we’ve actually worked with in a win previously.
So, yeah, decided this would be an amazing challenge, really cool place to hang out, really cool group and looking forward to the times ahead.’
Is Burling the missing piece for this team?
‘Well I hope so. But yeah, I mean the America’s Cup’s really a whole heap of small parts coming together and you know getting the collective sum of everyone to really keep progressing forward and yeah that’s what we’re really working on at the moment is making sure we keep stepping forward quicker than the other teams and I’m super excited by the program that’s laid out over the next, you know, not that much more than a year to be honest.
So it’s going to be a busy time ahead but I’m super excited. I think you know racing for Italy on home waters is going to be something that’s incredibly special and yeah looking forward to the challenge of you everything together and trying to get a win for Luna Rossa.’
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