The Reemergence of Jimmy Spithill

Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli co-helmsman Jimmy Spithill has been an America’s Cup force for 25 years. Ricardo Pinto/America’s Cup

The last time the sailing world heard much about Jimmy Spithill was back in late November. That’s when Spithill announced he was leaving the United States SailGP team and planning to launch a new Italian team in tech billionaire Larry Ellison’s global league. Since then, he has indeed been working to launch that SailGP team. But on the water, he’s been hyper-focused on his current day job and the event that thrust him to sailing stardom, the America’s Cup.

Spithill is back for his eighth straight America’s Cup campaign. He returns along with Francesco “Checco” Bruni in the co-helmsmen role they pioneered in 2021 aboard Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Team, the stylish sailing squad with the silver-hulled AC75 foiling monohull that’s backed in part by the Prada fashion house.

Spithill spent much of this year training with his teammates in Cagliari, Sardinia, before the syndicate relocated the short distance across the Mediterranean to Barcelona for AC37. It’s been not quite 3 ½ years since Luna Rossa lost 7-3 to Emirates Team New Zealand in the 36th America’s Cup in Auckland. The disappointment has faded and Luna Rossa is ready to take another run at becoming the first Italian syndicate to win the Auld Mug.

“I think it’s just been really motivating,” Spithill said from Barcelona ahead of the non-counting Final Preliminary Regatta. “It gave the team confidence it could get to the final. And not only that but really push the Kiwis.

“The big difference I see this time is the fleet in general is much closer than it was back in Auckland and there’s a lot of racing,” Spithill added. “So, whoever the challenger is that goes through—look, I hope it’s us—whoever does go through, given the level and challenges … will really be as well-prepared as they can be.”

Spithill, Bruni and Luna Rossa came out strong in the final Louis Vuitton Preliminary Regatta, reaching the final before suffering a close loss to the Kiwis. Up next is the real action. The Louis Vuitton Cup double round robins start Thursday.

Spithill is best known for skippering Ellison’s Oracle Team USA to consecutive America’s Cup wins. The first was in the Deed of Gift match against Alight in 2010 and then three years later he led an almost unfathomable comeback to defend the Cup by handing Emirates Team New Zealand a soul-crushing loss. Despite losing the Cup to ETNZ in 2017 in Bermuda and then losing to the Kiwis in the match in 2021, Spithill hasn’t tired of pursuing sailing’s holy grail.

A fierce competitor on the water, Spithill can always be counted on for a bit of honesty or a zinger in the press conferences and media mixed zones. Ian Roman/America’s Cup

He notes that he began his Cup career during the same regatta that Patrizio Bertelli, the husband of Miuccia Prada, launched what was then known as Prada Challenge in the 1999-2000 regatta. Prada Challenge made it to the match before losing to Russell Coutts’ Team New Zealand. Back then, Spithill was a precocious 20-year-old competing for his native Australia in a bare-bones syndicate. While this is his second straight campaign with Luna Rossa, it’s his third overall with the Italian team.

In 2007 in Valencia, Spithill sailed with Luna Rossa for the first time. Italian fans and broadcasters who were smitten with his aggressive tactics nicknamed him “James Pitbull” and “Jesse James Spithill,” the latter after the legendary American gunslinger.

After delivering two Cup wins for U.S.-flagged teams—he lives fulltime in San Diego with his American wife and their two boys—Spithill would love to reward passionate Italian fans.

“It would mean a lot,” he said. “But look, probably the biggest thing I’ve learned in 25 years of doing the America’s Cup nonstop is that there’s nothing wrong with, let’s say, vividly picturing winning, because that’s the goal, but you really don’t want to get too far ahead of yourself.

“It’s sort of like climbing Everest. Yeah, you know, you can see the summit, but what you’ve got to worry about is step by step. And that’s and that’s the same here.”

Spithill said it was beneficial having the team base in Cagliari, calling it “one of the best venues I’ve ever been based in terms of the facilities, the lifestyle, just how efficient we can be there. And you can sail 365 days a year.”

It was where the team’s new AC75 was christened on April 13 when Miuccia Prada broke a bottle of Cantine Ferrari’s Maximum Blanc de Blancs on the vessel’s bow.

Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli’s AC75 thus far has been fast and manueverable, even at the bottom of the wind range. Ricardo Pinto/America’s Cup

Luna Rossa might have benefited the most from Emirates Team New Zealand moving the defense from Auckland to Barcelona. It’s only about 400 miles across the Med from Cagliari to Barcelona, making for an easy move via container ship.

“I think they made the right move by us because it was super easy for us to get here, much easier for us. But I think if you’re in New Zealand, if you’re a taxpaying Kiwi, I think you’d be pretty pissed off,” Spithill said.

As for SailGP, Spithill said he expects an announcement either right before the AC match or in Dubai in conjunction with the Season 5 lid-lifter in late November.

“Nothing official, yet,” Spithill said.

First, there’s a Cup to try to win in the waves off a cosmopolitan European city where the glamor has returned to sailing’s marquee regatta.

“I think this one will be very, very big,” Spithill said.

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