America's Cup: Peter Burling and Josh Junior update on Luna Rossa progress
by Richard Gladwell/Sail-World.com/nz 1 Jul 18:06 PDT
Day 6 - Luna Rossa (ITA) - June 29, 2026 - Cagliari, Sardinia © Ivo Rovira
Several top New Zealand America's Cup sailors and coaches have joined Italy's Luna Rossa in their bid for a home-country America's Cup win in July 2027
Josh Junior part of the sailing squad in the 2017 and 2021 America's Cup wins, and was a coach in the 2024 win in Barcelona. He joined the Italians soon after the 2024 Cup. Peter Burling joined Luna Rossa after negotiations to continue with the Kiwis ended in a stalemate. He is now potentially in a position to become the only helmsman in Cup history to win four successive America's Cups.
The tried and highly experienced duo of Cups past, Jimmy Spithill and Francesco Bruni have moved on. Spithill to head up the Red Bull Italy SailGP team, while Bruni remains with the Italian team in a coaching and support capacity.
From what we have seen of the Italian effort, with the combination of the Kiwi experience and the energy coming through from the Italian Youth and Womens programs. In that regard, Luna Rossa won both the Womens and Youth America's Cup events in Barcelona, and has now transitioned to the AC75. The two Italian teams at the first Preliminary America's Cup regatta in Cagliari were unlucky not to have both Final spots. But Luna Rossa co-helmed by Peter Burling and double Olympic Gold medalist Ruggero Tita, dealt to the New Zealand crew in the pre-start, and had a relatively comfortable win.
The Italian Womens and Youth team stubbed their toe on the final two races, also with pre-start snafus, and wiped out a big points lead from the first two days. Both the Italian and Kiwi teams gained a valuable learning experience from the Cagliari event, and Round 2 in Naples from September 24-27 will be watched with interest.
Also heavily involved in Luna Rossa are top coaches Hamish Willcox and Philippe Presti, who bring a wealth of experience from their own sailing efforts and other America's Cup-winning teams. Now, after six days on the water off the team base in Cagliari, the campaign looks slick and has momentum.
"At the moment, we're still in the very early days of our AC 75 program," says Josh Junior in an interview published by the team.
"We're still really commissioning the boat and trying to get all the systems going, but it's been really positive. There's been a lot of really good things happening, and we're progressing really fast," he adds.
Horacio Carabelli, head of the design team for Luna Rossa, says they are happy with the way their changes to the metallic silver-hulled AC75 have worked out in practice.
"I think everything's working as we predicted, and we're already learning. At this stage, it's difficult to see any difference, as we're sailing with the legacy foils that we had in Barcelona."
"Obviously, the sailing team are the end user of the boat," explains skipper Peter Burling. "So we're the ones who have to go and execute the way to get around the racetrack faster than someone else. We collaborate a lot with the designers and also the shore team. There's a lot of detail in terms of how you can be very efficient in the way you operate, be able to do things quicker.
"This is all a process that we're getting more comfortable with at the moment," he adds.
He says that the team are cycling through the larger sailing squad, giving everyone time and experience in the AC75, rather than just working with a tight sailing crew.