First AC75 arrives in Naples.
From Lorient to Naples: La Roche-Posay Racing Team’s AC75 completes an extraordinary journey.
Nearly two weeks, hundreds of kilometres by road and a passage across the Mediterranean: that is what it took to move La Roche-Posay Racing Team’s AC75 from Lorient to Naples.
Having left Brittany on 10 September, the French boat arrived in Bagnoli on Thursday 24 September, bringing to a close a logistical operation as discreet as it was remarkable. Its arrival in the Bay of Naples, where the team has now established its base, was closely watched by the America’s Cup community, local authorities and media alike.
The journey began in Lorient on Thursday 10 September. Moving an AC75 — together with its two masts — is no ordinary road trip. The operation was entrusted to Augizeau, a specialist in exceptional transport, which had already handled the AC75’s journey to Barcelona and its return to France during the previous campaign.
Behind the move was K-Challenge’s operations team, which had spent several weeks planning every stage before overseeing the convoy remotely. Transporting a yacht of this scale across France is a logistical exercise in precision: plotting the route, identifying the most restrictive sections, accounting for height and width limitations, coordinating permitted travelling times and, crucially, securing the necessary administrative clearances as the convoy crossed successive French departments.
Five days later, on 15 September, the AC75 and its two masts reached Sète on the Mediterranean coast.
From there, the nature of the journey changed entirely. Road gave way to sea. The yacht was loaded aboard a barge operated by French maritime company Jifmar, which left Sète on Wednesday 16 September bound for Naples.
Eight days later, the AC75 arrived in Bagnoli, at the heart of preparations for the 38th America’s Cup. In doing so, La Roche-Posay Racing Team became the first competing team to bring its AC75 to Naples.
The arrival also marks a very tangible shift in the French Challenger’s campaign. After months based in Lorient, its centre of gravity now moves south to Italy. Naples will be home for the next phase of the AC75 programme, with the yacht due to return to the water in October.
