America's Cup launch update

Prada's new Luna Rossa is the latest ACC boat to get her sail number allocation

America's Cup Class Technical Director Ken McAlpine has allotted sail number 80 to the second new Luna Rossa that Team Prada has currently under construction in their boatyard in Grosseto, Italy.

The team will shortly recommence activity in the operations base in Punta Ala. The launch of the first new Luna Rossa ITA 74, the first new ACC boat of the team, is scheduled at the end of May.

Meanwhile there have been a spate of launches by the America's Cup class challengers. Aside from the high profile launch of Peter Harrison's Wight Lightning - GBR70 in the UK, Alinghi have their new SUI-64, Victory Challenge Orn SWE-63, Stars & Stripes USA-66 and then there are the two new boats from OneWorld - USA-65 and USA-67.

The next new boat to be launched will be ITA-72 of the other Italian syndicate Mascalzone Latino this weekend in Naples

The two new boats from Team New Zealand will not be launched until later in the year - one of the advantages of not having to defend the America's Cup until 15 February 2003 (while the challenger series starts on 1 October 2002). Construction began at Cookson of the first Team New Zealand boat in mid-April and her launch is expected mid-August. The second boat is expected to be started in early June.

So this makes the line up of new generation ACC boats look as follows:

Sail no:	Name/challenger	Status
SWE-63	Orn - Victory Challenge	Launched Dec 2001
SUI-64	Alinghi	Launched Nov 2001
USA-65	One World	Launched April 2002
USA-66	Stars & Stripes	Launched Jan 2002
USA-67	One World	Launched April 2002
GER-68	illbruck	Withdrawn
FRA-69	Le Defi Areva	Launched
GBR-70	Wight Lightning - GBR Challenge	Launching mid-June
USA-71	Oracle Racing	Launching June
ITA-72	Mascalzone Latino	Launching June
SWE-73	Victory Challenge	Launching June
ITA-74	Luna Rossa Prada	Launching May
SUI-75	Alinghi	Launching August
USA-76	Oracle Racing	Launching June
USA-77	Stars & Stripes	Launching June
GBR-78	GBR Challenge	Launching spring 2003
FRA-79	Le Defi Areva	Revamped FRA-46
ITA-80	Luna Rossa - Prada	TBA
NZL-??	Team New Zealand	Launching Sept
NZL-??	Team New Zealand	Launching Oct?