Alinghi Red Bull Racing BoatOne enters the water in Barcelona

The Alinghi Red Bull Racing AC75’s black and red sails bear the Prysmian logo, one of the team’s official sponsors in a new partnership that builds on Prysmian’s long-time commitment to competitive sailing.

The spectacular debut of Alinghi Red Bull Racing’s AC75 on April 5 in Barcelona turned the excitement up a notch surrounding the team’s attempt at a third-time win in the America’s Cups sailing race on October 12-21, 2024. The christening on April 16 gave competitors and hundreds of millions of sports lovers around the world a chance to see how the Alinghi AC75 “BoatOne” will look and perform in the water against the other six boats in the 37th edition of the historic race known as “the Formula 1 of the seas.”

On April 5, Prysmian CEO South Europe Marcello Del Brenna and CEO Spain Joardi Calvo were among the crowd of team members, dignitaries and well-wishers at the unveiling ceremony in Barcelona as the AC75 was finally revealed after months of top-secret testing at Ecublens, Switzerland on the shores of Lake Geneva. On April 16, she left the shed at the team’s Barcelona base in Port Vell and finally be placed in the water to get ready for her maiden sail.

The America’s Cup race is the oldest competition in sport, and one of the most spectacular, with the 36th America’s Cup sailed in Auckland between December 2020 and March 2021 drawing a total global tv and streaming audience of 941million. BoatOne and its competitors will now take center stage as they hit the waves one by one and begin test sailings.

The next-generation AC75

The AC75, or America’s Cup 75 (after its 75-foot length), is a class of racing yacht built only for the competition, in accordance with specific Cup protocols that provide a level playing ground -- hence the comparison to Formula 1. And just as the only thing a Formula 1 vehicle has in common with a normal car is four wheels, the carbon fiber-bodied AC75 is unlike a normal sail boat. Audiences fell in love with them during the 36th America's Cup in 2021, so organizers brought them back again this time and also for the 38th edition.

These sea racing machines are designed to fly rather than float. The secret weapons are the four-meter-high foils on either side that enable the flat-bottomed, keel-less AC75 to skim over the top of the water eliminating drag and thereby increasing speed. At their fastest, they can reach 55 knots, or 105 kilometers per hour, compared to around 20 knots for a cruise ship.

The basic rules governing dimensions, weight, mast, rigging and hydraulics are uniform for all, but designers have a free hand everywhere else. The AC75s for this race will be lighter than last time because the number of crew has been reduced from 11 to 8. Crews can include cyclors, or cyclists powering stationary bikes to generate power needed for the boat’s controls, an innovation that was key to Emirates Team New Zealand’s victory in 2017 but were banned for the last edition of the race. Traditionally, this power was provided by the arms of the grinders on the crew.

The Alinghi team of 30 boat builders led by Principal Designer Marcelino Botin plus seven people at the production facility poured 60,000 hours over 11 months into design and testing BoatOne to make it as close to perfect as possible. It’s still too soon to say how the AC75s five Challengers (INEOS Britannia, Alinghi Red Bull Racing, NYYC American Magic, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli and Orient Express Racing Team) and the Defender (Emirates Team New Zealand) AC75s will stack up. What was clear from BoatOne’s debut was that with no backstay sails at the rear of the boat allowed for the second-generation AC75s, structure and weight in the transom area can be greatly reduced. The BoatOne’s tall cockpit walls round at back and stop sharply well before the transom, meaning that the crew will be concentrated near the foils.

Synergy with F1

The parallel between America’s Cup and Formula 1 racing is especially apt for BoatOne, because its noticeable aerodynamic elements are the result of the team’s association with the Red Bull Formula 1 designers and engineers. Reducing aerodynamic drag is a critical part of performance, and even seconds count.

Marcelino Botin’s team was able to tap into Red Bull racing’s design technology and software during their work, he said.

The year’s rules allow teams to build only one AC75, in hopes of cutting down on costs and attracting more competitors. To win the America’s Cup in October, Alinghi Red Bull Racing BoatOne needs to come up with innovations that make it superior to the Defender, Emirates Team New Zealand. The design team has only one chance to get it right.

Table of contents

Alinghi Red Bull Racing BoatOne enters the water in Barcelona