Two decades after his startup Prada Challenge was swept out of the America's Cup Match by Team New Zealand, Italian billionaire Patrizio Bertelli continues to be motivated by the advice of the late Kiwi sailing champion Sir Peter Blake.
Blake wrote the foreword for a book about Prada Challenge's 2000 campaign, encouraging the Italians to keep trying despite the crushing disappointment of that loss and the long odds of winning sailing's marquee regatta.
Bertelli took Blake's words to heart. Four campaigns later, Bertelli's team, now known as Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Team, is back in the America's Cup Match. Luna Rossa and defending champion Team New Zealand are tied 2-2 after splitting races on the first two days of the best-of-13 series being sailed on the Hauraki Gulf off Auckland.
"As Peter Blake wrote to us, in the America's Cup you are not meant to give up; the America's Cup is not for the faint-hearted," Bertelli said in an email from Italy. "Winning the America's Cup is almost impossible; almost, but not completely. It is this difficulty that makes any adventure worthwhile."
Blake helped New Zealand win the America's Cup for the first time, in 1995, and then managed the Kiwi team in 2000 when it beat Prada Challenge. He was killed by pirates while on an environmental exploration trip on the Amazon in December 2001.