LUNA LAUNCH: Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli, team principal of Luna Rossa Challenge 2013 and chief executive officer of Prada SpA, christened with Champagne the AC 72 Luna Rossa catamaran on Friday in Auckland, New Zealand, in a traditional bottle-breaking ceremony. The Prada-sponsored Luna Rossa will take part in the 34th America’s Cup, which will be held in San Francisco in September.
“This is our fourth challenge for the America’s Cup, certainly the most revolutionary compared to past ones,” said Bertelli. “Launching a yacht is still as exciting as ever, maybe even more so in this case because this boat is so technologically extreme, the outcome of state-of-the-art research and of a huge effort from the whole team.”
A 70-member team worked on the 22-meter maxi catamaran with a 40-meter high wingsail, for nearly one year. Construction involved 300 people for a total of 52,000 working hours. The total cost of sponsoring the yacht is expected to amount to about 40 million euros, or $54.4 million at current exchange rates.