+39

We speak to Luca Devoti about Iain Percy and the latest developments with his Italian America's Cup team

Clan Des Team have announced some significant progress with their team including a skipper and the poaching of Iain Percy from GBR Challenge.

On 25 March, Clan Des Team revealed themselves as the first official Challenger in the 32nd America's Cup after the Challenge of Record, Oracle BMW Racing. Since then the team have changed their name and are now to be known as +39 (presumably after the international dialling code for Italy rather than the age of the crew).

Today Luca Devoti (above) has been announced as skipper of the +39, and Iain Percy helmsman. The latter appointment will come as a blow to GBR Challenge who were anticipating Percy not only being a key member of their afterguard but also one of the spokesmen and ambassadors for their campaign.

Devoti and Percy have had a long association. When Percy won Gold in the Finn at the Sydney Olympics, it was Devoti who picked up Silver. Devoti is also well known in the UK for his Burnham-on-Crouch based company Devoti Sailing which he set up in 1992 with Tim Tavinor. They quickly established themselves as builders of 'the' Finn to have and have since moved into the Optimist, 420, 470, Snipe, Melges 24, Star and Musto Performance Skiff.

Devoti says that the America's Cup has been a long term ambition of his. "My Olympic career is long finished. I am 41 and a half. I could have moved to the Star, but I think that when someone goes to the Olympics who is over 40 there is something crazy. The Olympics is for young people and the Cup seems like a logical development. Also with my boat building and the creative part of my work, it is like completion, a dream come true really..."

The +39 challenge heralds from the Circolo Vela Gargnano on Lake Garda close to where Devoti lives and where he trains. With Italian America's Cup challenges for 2007 almost approaching double figures, Devoti says that he was impressed by the management team behind +39. "This is a really serious, professionally done challenge and they are really up for it and the way they work, their personalities, their knowledge, their contacts and what they have already done. So I am confident this is going to work out very well."

The team led by Lorenzo Rizzardi who President of the Circolo Vela Gargnano and syndicate head of +39, carried out a feasibility study of their conducting an America's Cup challenge. "They are all top notch managers and they thought they could really do it," Devoti says. "Then they approached me and we discussed a new concept of putting together a crew, and how to construct the challenge and I had some very clear ideas about how to do it and they were fascinated by my concept of taking young hungry sailors, the real challengers, to be on the boat."

With Devoti, the management team were in Palma during the Princess Sofia regatta where they talked to a lot of Olympic sailors. Among them was Iain Percy. "I thought he was the ideal helmsman for us, so I proposed him for the role. They [the team managers] were enthusiastic and we contacted him and now he is with us."

Aside from Percy +39 have also signed French Star sailor Xavier Rohart and his crew Pasqual Rembeau, who were World Champions in 2003; Spanish Finn sailor Rafael Trujillo, second in the Finn World Championship in 2003 and Britain's number 2 Finn sailor to Ben Ainslie, Andrew (Bart) Simpson. Devoti says there is a strong possibility of +39 signing other British sailors, although they are not in discussions with Ben Ainslie. The Olympic sailors will not be obliged to take up their positions with +39 until after the Athens Olympics.

Although the America's Cup is a match racing event, Devoti thinks Olympic sailors will quickly make the transistion. "I personally don’t think that match racing is such a difficult issue. Finn sailors who have tried it in the past didn’t really struggle in becoming really good. We have people with match racing experience like the Spanish guy that was second at the Finn Worlds last year, he was a crew at the match racing worlds, and the French crew of Xavier Rohart was the crew of Philippe Presti on the Soling in Sydney.

"I think that the aggression and charisma of Iain Percy are perfect for match racing," Devoti continues. "I see no problem with him being one of the best match racers around within six months of him starting. I think the match racing issue is overblown especially on these boats and when you have sailors of this calibre they’s going to be learned very quickly. And they have three years too."

+39 are also talking to Stig Westergaard who is likely to take on a coaching role.

While Devoti has been appointed skipper, he says his role is part coach. For the last year and a half he has been working with David Barrows, the Irish Finn sailor. "I like to create the environment where a young champion can excel," he says. "That is how I see my role. If I am on board it will be in a secondary role, like doing the runners or overseeing things and just creating the team spirit and giving experience to the young guys so that they can really be good."

Aside from Olympic sailors, Devoti says they will have at least 10 crewmembers with previous Cup experience. Fortunately in Italy there is no shortage of experience from previous Prada campaigns or even Il Moro. They are also in negotiations with other big boat sailors who have competed in the Volvo Ocean Race and in the Maxis. "We have plenty of guys with big boat experience. It is not only young guys with no understanding - that would be crazy. I think it is quite well balanced."

+39 have appointed Giovanni Ceccarelli as their head of design. Ceccarelli was responsible for designing the Mascalzone Latino boats for the last America's Cup. Their design team is likely to be eight strong comprising four Italians and four non-Italians. The team have announced they will be working with Prof. Giovanni Lombardi, a teacher of aerospace engineering at the University of Pisa.

"We are pretty confident we have a decent design team, plus the way the new Cup rules have been written, the boats are in a corner of the old Cup rules and they are going to be very similar," says Devoti. "And there are going to be shorter coures and more races per day so we hope that we are not going to so bad on the boat."

The team are currently negotiating the purchase of some ACC boats, although which ones has yet to be disclosed. Devoti says that part of the package is to buy the design technology accompanying the boats as allowed under the new America's Cup Protocol.

The rumour has been doing the rounds that +39 were merging with another team, but Devoti denies this. "No, we’re not joining with anyone. With our group concept and our design concept and everything, there is not much we can gather from the other challengers. It is radically different and new and we wouldn't really know how to meld with another challenger."

At present +39 will make their race debut in Valencia in October and will miss out the first America's Cup 'act' in Marseilles. "We don’t expect to do anything except at look at what the other teams are doing, but we think it is going to take 6-9 months to learn to sail these boats without risking injuries because the loads are pretty dramatic," says Devoti. "But at the same time we will have some experienced guys, so we will be able to go around the buoys and assess where we are and that will give us the motivation to do our training programme and nine months later we will be there."