Lorenzo Rizzardi is President of the challenging yacht club and the team initiator for +39.
Whilst +39 is a new player on the America's Cup stage, it has plenty of experience in international yachting. The leaders of this team on the water are rivals from the Finn class in the 2000 Olympic Games. +39 skipper Luca Devoti earned a silver medal behind gold medalist Iain Percy of Great Britain in Sydney, but the two have joined forces here, giving +39 an enviable duo to lead the team.
Giovanni Ceccarelli is the designer for the team. He designed Mascalzone Latino for one of the two Italian challengers in 2002/2003. Ceccarelli has a team composed of both Italian and international design experts and he is using the experience of Prof. Giovanni Lombardi, a teacher of aerospace engineering at the University of Pisa.
+39 Challenge didn't sail in the opening two Louis Vuitton Acts in 2004 in Marseille. The team finished eighth in Act 3 and on the Season Champion table.
+39 showed much improvement in 2005, finishing as high as sixth in the match racing in Malmö-Skåne. The team closed the year eighth on the season championship table and fifth on the Louis Vuitton Ranking of challengers.
In 2006, +39 Challenge ran into the limitations of sailing the oldest boat in the fleet. The Italians could do no better than 10th place on the season points table, highlighted by an eighth place finish in the fleet racing Act 11. The team has slipped to seventh place on the Louis Vuitton Ranking of challengers.
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