Spithill unloads on NZL AC team, Luna Rossa AC72 vision and more

by Jedda Murphy and the Sail-World.com Team on 12 Mar 2013 The non-American sailors in the 2013 America´s Cup teams are making a very significant impact.

Back in 2000 freckle faced James (Jimmy) Spithill at age 20 was the skipper of Syd Fischer's underfunded Young Australia team. He campaigned thru various Cup iterations, did some great things with the Luna Rossa AC syndicate, won a match racing World title and in 2010 Spithill became the youngest ever winner of the America's Cup, with BMW Oracle.

We will be talking to the now 33 year regularly over the next six months leading up to the September event in San Francisco. We had a long conversation with him last week and today we publish the first part of that extended interview.

How the expensive AC72 capsize has made his team tougher and how he has no desire to be in Team New Zealand´s shoes.

In Part 2 that we will publish later in the week, Jimmy tells us more about the two boat program and the key role Ben Ainslie will play, in this crucial part of the run up to the Cup and what he REALLY thinks about the New Zealanders.

Last Friday afternoon the two America's Cup AC72's working out of Auckland, Luna Rossa and Emirates Team New Zealand, staged a series of semi-formal race training sessions off Takapuna Beach and as you´d expect Sail-World´s Richard Gladwell was right there. In this edition of Sail-World.com's newsletter we feature three image galleries and a long video clip of one of the sessions.

And later in the week we will show your more vision from Auckland that will make Italian hearts soar. This is content that you really have to look at.

Also on Friday was the final day of the Extreme Sailing Series opening Act in Muscat, Oman. It may not have been high speed racing but it was as tense as it gets, and in classic Extreme Sailing Series style, it came down to the final race for the winner to be decided.

Defending champion Leigh McMillan (GBR) and his team on The Wave, Muscat sailed a picture perfect day coming back from a 15 point deficit to Red Bull Sailing Team to claim overall victory, in the closest possible finish on their home turf.

On Saturday, the final day of the Gaastra 52 World Championship in Miami, Florida, Alberto Roemmers, owner and helmsman from the Azzurra had been sailed very well on the 52 US Super Series circuit and nearly tasted victory at the Worlds but a broach in the last run of the last race allowed Nicklas Zennström and his British based Ran Racing team to overtake and win by just one point.

After the announcement of the joint venture between the Finn Class and the Dinghy Academy, while sailors battle wind chill in Weymouth, Valencia has been showing off some of its best conditions for the assembled Finn sailors in recent months. There to capture these moments is the talented Pavlina Soukupova who has turned Finn photography into a fascinating art form.