John Mcbeth is right – just give alinghi the cold shoulder and silent treatment.

What is NZ international dialing code??

They’re sponsored by some Italian Telco as I understand it

Bye
Giulio

PS
Do you know where the name +39 (piùtrantanove) come from?
Vale don’t suggest!

Paul Elvstrom once said “You haven’t won the race, if in winning the race, you have lost the respect of your competitors.”

I’ve more admiration for what our little +39 Challenge team did in Valencia this year than for Alinghi winning the Cup in 2003.

This said, I must admit he is a brilliant manager.
His team looks perfect, they have the best things and people money can buy in every field.
He succeeded where most people have failed, and he knows how to spend his money to achieve the results he wants. Maybe Larry Allison should hire him instead of Russel Coutts for his next campaign..

It will not be easy for TNZ to bring back the Cup to Auckland.
It will be very hard, Alinghi is a giant.
Winning may seem almost impossible, almost, but not impossible said a great man.

I hope ETNZ will find the extra speed they will need in the hearts of the thousands, millions of NZ supporters who will spend their nigths following the races. Who every day will go to work still asleep and dreaming for a bed.. This is a thing that nobody can buy, NZ has it, and the same Luna Rossa.
Nobody could ever buy your passion, sportmanship, love for sailing.
Be proud of your men fighting for the Cup.
Even if they will not be the winners in the end.

Giulio

Carl, I think a “Squadra Italia” would be impossible..
Italy is a beatuiful country, a coloured beautiful mosaic where, for historical reasons, every region, or even small town, has always had and wants to mantain a strong identity and cultural independence.
Nowadays you can see this in the many differnt regional dialects (sometimes almost different languages) still spoken, especially by old people. In the hundreds of different regional cuisines or in the strong rivalry between the football teams.

It would be very difficult to create a Team that could alone represent the whole country, there would be too many cooks..
And consider that here most people are interested in sailing only once every 3 or 4 years.. (but then it’s a full immersion…) and we have three challengers for the America’s Cup… (Us have just one, UK none…)

It’s more likely that in the next AC (maybe in New Zealand) we could have 4 or 5 Italian Teams in a separate Cup (let’s say a Luigi Vittone Cup ) and the others in the real LVC

Cheers

Giulio

I doubt even TNZ and Alinghi know that answer for sure.

Luna Rossa on the other hand have been on the back foot boatspeed wise for a while now. Remember Bertelli firing Doug Peterson after four races in 2003?

I personally think we took longer to dispatch of Desafio cos our team didnt fire as well as they did against LR.
But, could be wrong. Its just hard to believe LR could get their boat speed THAT wrong.

Giulio, Jimmy Spithill is one of the very best matchracers in the world, some would say he’s second only to Coutts in an America’s Cup boat, and De Angelis did an incredible job making a unified, focused team. The problem with the campaign this year was a lack of boatspeed (Luna Rossa were slower than Desafio and I’d imagine much slower than Alinghi) and the Italian challenges were too fractured.
If there was a single Squadra Italia with the combined resources of the three Italian teams instead I have a feeling you guys would have been unstoppable.