Quotes: Patrizio Bertelli & Francesco De Angelis

Quote From Patrizio Bertelli

At the end of the semifinals of the Louis Vuitton Cup Patrizio Bertelli said:"I am sorry that this time around our progress in the America's Cup Challenge stopped short before the Louis Vuitton Cup finals. I am particularly sorry for the team who, as always, has given everything it had and has proven to be among the best in the world, and also for all our supporters who understandably will be disappointed by the results.

We realized early on this year that our boats were not as competitive as those of the other current semifinalist teams. This is not the time nor place to elaborate on this or on the reasons why we found ourselves in this situation. We already spoke of this in the past. I want to point out though how well the team was able to bounce back, working day and night, to modify and improve the boats. What was accomplished is testimony to the great qualities and potential of this team who certainly deserved more.

Unfortunately we reached very soon the limit of the potential development of our boats and improving them further in the limited time available was not feasible.

I think that in the future the rules should allow for greater flexibility in the race calendar in order to allow better use of the weather conditions during the whole span of the day. Often we have seen whole days lost when a simple change to an earlier start would have allowed the competitors to race.

We are left with the satisfaction of having witnessed the performance of a crew at the highest level, even superior to that of the last Cup. For us getting this far in the competition is a result that few would have bet on at the beginning of the Round Robins and it certainly rewards the efforts and the work of the whole team.

As Challenger of Record for the America's Cup, we will keep on working with renewed energy towards the goal of assuring that the winner of the Louis Vuitton Cup is the best possible challenger.

As to the future of Team Prada and a possible participation to the next America's Cup, I think it is still too soon to consider this option before the end of the current event."

Quote From Francesco De Angelis

At the end of the semifinals of the Louis Vuitton Cup francesco de Angelis said: "We left the dock this morning hoping to race two matches today and to even our score. As the day wore on and we just sat there waiting for the wind we began to feel that we were not in control of our destiny any longer. It was certainly a pity that we could not really complete a best of seven series.

Certainly the four days over the last ten that were lost to adverse weather conditions were also a serious drawback. Only a few hours have gone by since the end of today's race and it will take some time before we can regroup and analyze with a clear mind the whole campaign and evaluate it. The whole Prada Team deserves a special thanks for the incredible effort they put forth during the past two years up until today, without them this would not have been possible. On a personal note I'd like to thank Patrizio Bertelli for the opportunity he gave me to be part of this campaign."

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