Five things to look out for in Naples this weekend

For the first time this cycle, the America's Cup teams are racing on the water that will decide the 38th edition. Nine AC40s from six teams line up on the Bay of Naples, with three days of fleet racing and a winner-takes-all match race on Sunday.

Here's what we'll be watching.

Emirates Team New Zealand reached the Sardinia final, only to watch their former helmsman take the title. Nathan Outteridge ran out of runway along the line with Peter Burling behind him, hit the line a fraction early and let Burling cross cleanly. Luna Rossa won by 33 seconds.

The Defender keeps the same four for Naples: Outteridge and Seb Menzies sharing the helm, with Andy Maloney and Iain Jensen on trim. Outteridge played down the idea of a grudge match. "There's only as much pressure as you put on yourself," he said at the pre-event press conference. He added that Cagliari came with very little AC40 time, because the boats were on a ship heading to Sardinia, and that this week is about working through the list of fixes they came away with.

This time they've done their homework, with an intensive training block on the Naples racecourse in July. Even so, Maloney isn't expecting anyone to run away with it. "We can expect different teams to be leading every race," he says, and he sees consistency across the three days as the only reliable route into Sunday's final.

There's a second shot at the Italians too. Jake Pye, who at 21 is the youngest skipper in the fleet, leads the Kiwi Women & Youth crew.

There's more than enough talent in the home team, so where is team boss Max Sirena supposed to put it all?

Last week's crew list promoted Marco Gradoni to the senior squad. Luna Rossa said line-ups would be decided daily, which suggested a rotation to find the right partner for Burling in the port-side seat. But today Burling confirmed to The Foil that Gradoni will replace Ruggero Tita for the entire event.

That leaves a two-time Olympic champion on the chase boat, and turns the Tita–Gradoni contest for a 2027 AC75 helm into the subplot of the weekend. How will the reigning Youth America's Cup champion handle the spotlight? In Cagliari, Gradoni's Women & Youth crew led the regatta for the opening six races, and a repeat alongside Burling could make for an uncomfortable weekend for Tita.

Burling admitted the team is on a steep part of the learning curve with a largely new configuration. With Maria Giubilei also promoted from the second boat, now trimming the senior AC40 on starboard, the next generation is really stepping up in the home team. Margherita Porro, now skippering the second boat, says having at least one woman aboard both Luna Rossa AC40s sends a good message.

GB1's AC40 had earned the nickname 'Crispy' for its electrical gremlins, but in Sardinia the trouble came from elsewhere. A traveller-system failure cost the Challenger of Record the opening two races, then a hydraulic issue during warm-up laps took them out of day two altogether.

Naples hasn't started much better. Earlier this week the British AC40 collided with Tudor Team Alinghi's chase boat during training. The crash left a deep cut in one of the foil arms, and skipper Dylan Fletcher arrived at the press conference with a scar from hitting the cockpit coaming.

"We had an unfortunate incident in training on the first practice day just ahead of the first start, where we collided with the Tudor Team Alinghi chase boat, but fortunately everyone was safe," Fletcher said. "Just a bit of minor injuries, scratches to myself. But the team's looking in good shape now. Alinghi lent us their spare foil arm to get our race foil arm fixed up, so thanks to them and we're looking forward to getting out there."

Reliability matters more here than it did in Sardinia. There, teams could call a five-minute delay before a fleet race for technical problems, and GB1 used it. For Naples that option has been scrapped. Chief umpire Richard Slater says "the onus and expectation is on the teams to be ready to race." If Crispy breaks this weekend, the fleet won't wait – and GB1 will pay for it on the scoreboard.

This is the second preliminary regatta, but the first time the new American challenger has raced its rivals. Lucas Calabrese and Harry Melges IV helm, with Hans Henken and Michael Menninger trimming.

The team has been built almost from scratch since the spring. It acquired American Magic's AC75 Patriot and two AC40s, and appointed Giles Scott as Sailing Director at the end of April. CEO Ken Read called getting to the regatta start line "a big moment for us".

It's also short on hours, with just four AC40 days in their first training block compared with Luna Rossa's 28. But that didn't show in today's practice racing, where the Americans were right in the mix across three races, finishing second.

Melges steers from the starboard side despite breaking his foot last week, an injury that meant he couldn’t stand in for Taylor Canfield at SailGP Geneva last weekend. "Unfortunately, I broke my foot last week training here in Naples," he said. "It's not a super cool story, but I was just stepping on the RIB and a freak accident happened. But all you need is your head and your hands to sail this boat, so it should be all good."

The rookies aren't getting carried away. "Of course, the goal is to always be on top, but this isn't only our debut as a team, it's also the last time we're going to get to race before the big show next year," Melges added. "It would mean a whole lot [to win], but that's also not the focus right now. We're really focused on the future and making sure we're learning every day and getting better every day."

Ironically, the USA is back on the Cup start line just as its most famous yacht club asks for a legal review of the structure that runs the event.

Cagliari was a straightforward place to go sailboat racing. Naples, by every account from the teams, is not. The forecast is anything but settled, and offers two quite different regattas depending on where the breeze comes from.

The first is a north-easterly Grecale, which pours off the steep Vomero and Posillipo hills that ring the city and funnels down the grand avenues to the waterfront. At the top of the course, Castel dell'Ovo can block or split the flow.

Andrea Tesei is well placed to explain what that breeze does to the racecourse. The GB1 trimmer, who spent two campaigns with Luna Rossa and is now racing in his home country for the British, says the air comes off the top of the city up and down in both pressure and direction, stirred by what he calls "the heating of a really big city".

The alternative is the onshore sea breeze, which is no easier. Tesei says it tends to fill in from around 230 degrees before swinging towards 270 as it bends off the Posillipo headland, making it "very shifty and very gusty", conditions that could match what the AC75s face in 2027.

Tesei sums the course up as “quite a playful course with shifts in pressure”. Winning here will be about being on the right shift and in the right pressure more than raw speed. Seb Menzies reckons that some parts of the course matter far more than others, with "points on the first upwind which will be extremely crucial."

The race officials also have tight limits to manage. Racing runs between 7.5 and 21 knots, races are capped at 25 minutes, and in light air the leaders must reach the first mark within seven minutes. The race director can also call off racing if the sea state is unsuitable for foiling.

READ MORE: Freddie Carr: Naples is not a neutral racecourse

All times local (CEST).

Friday 25 September – race day one

14.10 – Fleet race 1
14.46 – Fleet race 2
15.27 – Fleet race 3

Saturday 26 September – race day two

14.10 – Fleet race 4
14.46 – Fleet race 5
15.27 – Fleet race 6

Sunday 27 September – race day three

14.10 – Fleet race 7
14.46 – Fleet race 8
15.27 – Match race final

Follow our race coverage over the weekend across all of The Foil’s channels.