Who is Peter Burling, the man who can turbocharge Luna Rossa

Obsessive pursuit of speed. If there were a phrase to describe the career and sailing philosophies of an athlete like Peter Burling perhaps this would be it. For there is one thing that most likely unites all of Peter Burling’s successes, from the Olympic classes to the America’s Cup, that he always had the merit of developing and leading a faster craft than his opponents. He was often like that in the 49er when he was able to tune the boat to always be faster than the others, and he was always like that in the America’s Cup Triplete as driver of Team New Zealand, when he always had a boat that was radically faster than his opponents. WATCH OUR INTERVIEW

And it is with this fame, that Peter Burling, born in Tauranga on January 1, 1991, 3 America’s Cups won along with 3 Olympic and 12 World Championship medals, lands on planet Luna Rossa (along with Josh Junior, more on him later). A negotiation carried out in great silence, leveraging the acquaintance between Max Sirena and Burling himself matured during the victorious 2017 challenge together in Team New Zealand. After all, after the break with the Kiwis, it was highly unlikely that, net of future Protocol stakes, Peter Burling would stay out of the next America’s Cup in Naples.

Peter Burling, what he will do in Luna Rossa

Luna Rossa will most likely not be able to field him in the boat because of nationality rules, but Peter Burling brings that culture of speed, the personality of a winner, and the technical skills to be able to help Luna Rossa close the current gap against the New Zealanders, adding that touch of risk that perhaps the Italian challenge has lacked in recent years.

It all depends on what role Burling will cover inside Luna Rossa, and what responsibilities he will be given. The Kiwi has already announced that he will continue his commitment to SailGP, so he will not be permanently based in Cagliari, but will likely experience some training/development windows with the team interspersed with his other professional activities. Peter Burling has studies in Mechanical Engineering in his career, and he has been central, including from a design choice perspective, to Team New Zealand’s three winning campaigns.

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It therefore follows that he can make a real contribution to the design of the boat, and to its development, as well as offer important insights into sailing. Ultimately then as a “market hit,” Burling is a pawn that weighs in, and having him there can be a great asset provided he is given responsibility and trust.

Inclusion in the team should not be a problem; in Luna Rossa they are used to personalities of a “cooler” matrix such as Peter Burling and James Spithill, and indeed Burling’s presence may be an extra stimulus for the young Luna Rossa sailors who have now fully joined the team. Marco Gradoni and Ruggero Tita in short do not have to fear competition from the New Zealand star, but they can take advantage of it with a booster of motivation and technical content to absorb.

Who is Peter Burling

Class of 1991 born in Tauranga, 186 cm tall and 85 kg, Peter Burling is the prototypical perfect AC 75 sailor. When Dan Bernasconi came up with this boat formula he was certainly thinking of him. In fact, Peter is a typical product of the “foil generation,” which grew up, especially in New Zealand, on bread and Moth, accustomed from adolescence to sailing on foil dinghies.

Burling’s beginnings between Optimist, 420 and 470 are spotty at times, but not too spotty either, as he won two world championships in a row in 420 in 2005 and 2006. Achievements that even earned him an Olympic participation in 470, closed in 11th position, in 2008, when he was not even 18 years old. It will be with the Moth, however, that Peter’s talent will explode. It’s 2011 and a Burling not even 20 years old shows up at the Moth World Championship in Australia, on Lake Macquarie, almost as a complete stranger to the class. The result is impressive, a fourth place in a ranking where the best specialists already figured. 2011 is after all the year of Peter’s explosion. Already racing for more than a year with bowman Blair Tuke in 49er, together they appeared at the 2011 Worlds in Perth and won silver. This is the beginning of a rise that still appears unstoppable today.

In 49er, Peter Burling with Blair Tuke won six world championships, also adding London 2012 Olympic silver and Rio 2016 gold, plus two more world silvers. An impressive palmares, achieved when he was still far from turning 30. In 2017 in Bermuda, he became the youngest helmsman to win the America’s Cup, badly scrambling James Spithill, then with Oracle, in the final, thanks in part to a superior means. It will be the first of three Cup victories.

In Moth meanwhile, his great passion, he gets a world gold and silver. Is that all? Not to be outdone, he participated with Team Brunel in the 2017/2018 Volvo Ocean Race as coxswain, finishing third in the round-the-world race with the Dutch crew.

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