Prada skipper happiest sitting in a boat

By SUZANNE MCFADDEN

Behind the wheel of Luna Rossa, Francesco de Angelis looks calm and in control. In front of a throng of journalists back on land, he looks a little seasick.

Unlike many America's Cup skippers past, de Angelis does not demand the limelight.

"He'd rather be back playing with his boat," laughs Prada designer Doug Peterson. "He is a boatspeed mechanic kind of guy.

"I wouldn't say he's a fanatic, but close to it. A lot of times he's the last person to go home - he wants to be part of everything on the boat.

"If the shore guys are doing something with the rig, he'll be there till the bitter end. Sometimes I have to tell him 'get the hell out of here and have a day off'."

The lanky 39-year-old helmsman has often been described as an absolute perfectionist by people who have hired him to sail their boats.

This is de Angelis' first taste of the America's Cup, so it would be understandable if the quietly-spoken sailor was overwhelmed by all of the "tifo" - the huge support both here and in Italy for Luna Rossa.

But he takes it in his long stride. After winning the Louis Vuitton Cup a fortnight ago, de Angelis was asked if he now considered himself Italy's No 1 sailor.

"I don't make rankings, you make rankings," he told the Italian media.

The man nicknamed "Il Barone" - the Baron - for his gentlemanly manner, says when he was young, the man who taught him to sail told him to "train, train, train and don't speak".

"For 20 years, I have achieved feats not words. I have been winning this way for 20 years and I will keep going this way. I'm not going to shout more," he said.

It was worked so far. De Angelis began his rise to quiet stardom when he won the J24 words in 1987.

He has notched up five One Ton Cup and ILC40 world titles since 1989. Many of those he sailed with Brazilian Torben Grael, his tactician on Brava for the first time in 1991, and now his right-hand-man on Luna Rossa.

But before the Cup, de Angelis was not a household name. Five years ago, his face launched a board game called Layline - a strategic sailing game with his photo on the box.

It didn't take off, but now the manufacturers will no doubt be looking to bring it back.

The makers of a new sailing video game based on the America's Cup are hoping to use the de Angelis mug as well.

The question remains how will de Angelis cope with the fame once he returns to his home of Naples - where they are already dancing in the streets till dawn over Luna Rossa's success.

He is a family man. He spends his time away from the base with his wife, Cori, and their two sons Pietro, 7, and Paolo, 4. The children are learning English at school with the local kids.

He is a very superstitious man. He wears the same sunglasses and shirt every race day. During the J24 world championships, he never took off his good luck shirt, and by the end of the week, his crew were keeping a good distance away from him.

De Angelis is also a very quick learner. Two years ago, when Prada boss Patrizio Bertelli hired him to lead the campaign on the water, he had no idea how to matchrace.

"I think people thought we would be a bad team because we started from scratch - no matchracing experience at all," he said.

"But at the end of the Louis Vuitton Cup, we were a very strong team. Matchracing has been a game of the Americans for years and years. That's the reason some money was spent to get that experience."