BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Before the last America’s Cup, Italy’s sailing team had what helmsman Francesco Bruni called a “crazy” idea: run the boat with two skippers, each taking turns steering as the foiling yacht crisscrossed the race course.
While the other crews lost valuable time as their sole skipper scampered back and forth with each tack or jibe, Bruni and Jimmy Spithill stayed put, each manning their own helm on their side of the boat.
It turned out to be a stroke of genius.
The innovative setup helped Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Team win the challengers’ series and advance to face Team Emirates New Zealand three years ago, when it lost to the defenders but not before a hard fight.
“It was a crazy idea back in the day, but we felt strongly (about it), and we keep it secret for quite a long time,” Bruni told The Associated Press. “And then it was too late for the other teams to react.”
The move was so successful that now all the boats, including that of the almighty Kiwis, have copied it at the 37th America’s Cup in Barcelona.
“There’s no copyright on good solutions,” coach Philippe Presti said about the other teams following his Luna Rossa’s lead.
Luna Rossa is back in the final of the Louis Vuitton Cup for the challengers in a rematch of the 2021 final when the Italians beat INEOS Britannia. The first-to-seven series starts on Thursday. The winner will get a shot at dethroning New Zealand next month in the America’s Cup match.
Even though its rivals are also now going with a two-skipper scheme, Luna Rossa is counting on its experience edge thanks to this being the second campaign with Bruni and Spithill in sync.
“It’s something that’s pretty special. You know, we’ve had this partnership from the last campaign,” said Spithill, a two-time America’s Cup winner with Oracle Team USA in 2010 and 2013.
“The fact that you’re going through more of these high-pressure situations when you do things well, but more importantly, when you make mistakes, that’s actually a critical time," he added. "And we’ve built up a really good relationship.”
Bruni said that the genesis of the dual-helm idea was hatched about three years before the 2021 America's Cup in Auckland. Presti said that it came out of a long brainstorming and problem-solving process involving several minds.
The problem to solve was how to deal with the huge sails that come right down to the deck and cut off half the visibility of the skipper. As Bruni described it: “You need to think about a car that has a big blanket in the middle and you can't see one side.”
“It was not something that someone one day woke up (and said), ‘Oh, we’ve got to do that',” Presti said. “It was really a work in progress. And then all of a sudden we find ourselves lucky that Checco (Bruni) was a lefty and, Jimmy was right-handed.”
The relationship between the two helms varies on each team.
Ben Ainslie, the most successful sailor in Olympic history, is clearly the leader of Britannia, where co-helm Dylan Fletcher said he defers to his judgment. Two-time America's Cup winner Peter Burling also has the last word on the New Zealand boat.
On American Magic, ousted by Luna Rossa last round, former Olympic rivals Tom Slingsby and Paul Goodison said each would be in charge when they were on the helm. But when Goodison was injured from a fall and had to be replaced by Lucas Calabrese, then the more experienced Slingsby said he needed to become more vocal.
Communication became key for success. The non-driving helm feeds information and paints a picture of the other side of the race to his partner via a microphone and earpiece.
And, as Bruni summed up his partnership with Spithill: “There is no finger pointing.”
The complementary characters of Spithill and Bruni also helped Luna Rossa, Presti said.
“The two are totally opposite in their character. Jimmy is pretty calm, really kind of the ice man, while Checco is volcanic and really alive, full of emotion,” Presti said. “That’s the beauty of this setup: you’ve got some different personality, different feedback, and huge respect.”
That difference was clear when they finished off American Magic. While Spithill kept his elation to a smile, Bruni shouted with joy over the team radio on crossing the finish line.
AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports
Luna Rosa Prada Pirelli Team's AC75 boat sails during a semi-final America's Cup Regatta ahead of the 37th America's Cup sailing race along the Barcelona's coast, Spain, Saturday, Sep. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Luna Rosa Prada Pirelli Team's AC75, left, and American Magic's AC75 boat sail during Semi-final America's Cup Regatta ahead of the 37th America's Cup sailing race along Barcelona's coast, Spain, Saturday, Sep. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Derided by Donald Trump as a “communist,” Kamala Harris is playing up her street cred as a capitalist.
Attacked by Harris as a rich kid who got $400 million from his father on a “silver platter,” Trump is leaning into his raw populism.
The two presidential candidates are set to deliver dueling speeches on Wednesday that reflect how they're honing their economic messages for voters in battleground states. Both are trying to counter criticism of them while laying out their best case for a public that still worries about the economy’s health.
Vice President Harris is set to speak at the Economic Club of Pittsburgh, where she plans to stress a “pragmatic” philosophy while outlining new policies to boost domestic manufacturing, according to a senior campaign official who sought anonymity to describe the upcoming address. The Democratic nominee's remarks come after she told a swanky audience of donors in New York City on Sunday that she would cut any “red tape” holding back growth.
Former President Trump is scheduled to deliver a speech in Mint Hill, North Carolina, about how he will protect workers. The Republican nominee made his reputation as a businessman, but he's recently expressed a willingness to crack down on businesses and has proposed to cap interest rates on credit cards and slap a whopping 200% tariff on tractor-maker John Deere if it moves any jobs to Mexico.
The candidates are each emphasizing the economy at a time when polls show that it is one of the most important issues for voters as they consider who to support. A recent AP-NORC poll found that neither candidate has a decisive edge with the public on the issue.
Both are eager to embrace an image as tax cutters and are accusing the other of backing massive tax hikes on the middle class. It's a meaningful shift in messaging as inflation concerns have ebbed somewhat with the Federal Reserve cutting its benchmark interest rates last week.
Billionaire Mark Cuban said business leaders like him are backing Harris because she has taken considered stances that companies can understand even when they have a different perspective.
"I want a president that for business goes into details and has a policy team that understands all the ramifications of what’s been proposed,” Cuban said on a Tuesday call with reporters set up by the Harris campaign.
Trump initially stressed the importance of increasing oil production and cutting corporate tax rates and preserving tax breaks for the wealthy to spur economic growth. But in recent days, he's been offering a host of other ideas. In addition to wanting no taxes on tips, Social Security or overtime pay, he wants to limit the interest rate on credit cards to 10% and set up low-tax zones on federal lands to lure employers. Trump also wants to ditch the cap on the deduction of state and local taxes that he put into the tax code in 2017 while president.
“Americans will no longer worry about losing their jobs to foreign nations, instead foreign nations will be worried about losing their jobs to America,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
Both candidates see an opportunity to trash the other's tax ideas. Trump recently dubbed Harris the “tax queen." She wants to raise the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21% as well as tax the unrealized capital gains of people worth more than $100 million. She would use the revenue from that and other policies to sustain tax cuts for the middle class that are set to expire after 2025 as well as offer new tax breaks to parents and entrepreneurs. Many of her policies build on ideas initially proposed by President Joe Biden.
Trump claims her tax hikes would ultimately trickle down to the middle class.
“She’s coming for your money," he told an audience on Monday. "She’s coming for your pensions, and she’s coming for your savings.”
Harris has shown that two can play that game. She labeled his call for tariffs a “national sales tax,” as it could increase the cost of coffee, clothes, electronics, autos and almost anything that gets imported or depends on imported parts. Her campaign likes to cite an analysis that originated with Brendan Duke of the Center for American Progress that estimated a 20% universal tariff would cost a typical family almost $4,000 a year. For taxpayers in the middle-income range, that sum would effectively increase their total federal taxes by 50%, according to calculations based on Treasury Department data.
Speaking in Georgia on Tuesday, Trump singled out the word “tariff” for praise, calling it “one of the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard.” He said it would raise hundreds of billions in tax revenues and not cause inflation.
Most economic analyses say broad tariffs would worsen inflation. The investment bank Goldman Sachs suggested that the tariffs, accompanied by a crackdown on immigrants in the United States, would hurt growth.
Harris has made efforts to elevate the middle class her top priority, often talking about her own background in the middle class to suggest that her ideas emerged out of a personal journey.
But at a New York City event on Sunday, she also made a pitch aimed at corporations that want less drama when dealing with government.
“We will create a stable business environment with consistent and transparent rules of the road," Harris said. "We will invest in semiconductors, clean energy, and other industries of the future. And we will cut needless bureaucracy and unnecessary red tape, all of which will create jobs, drive broad-based economic growth, and cement America’s leadership throughout the world.”
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris arrives to board Air Force Two at LaGuardia Airport in New York, Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks about the tax code and manufacturing at the Johnny Mercer Theatre Civic Center, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, in Savannah, Ga. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
