Big Deck Energy – a landlubber’s guide to understanding Panerai’s infatuation with the America’s Cup
Luke BenedictusEDITOR’S NOTE: This article first appeared in Issue 9 of the Time+Tide NOW Magazine. You can find Issue 9 in both physical and digital formats in the T+T Shop, and you’ll be treated with more industry insights, exciting interviews, and of course, the full Watch Buying Guide.
Walking into Panerai’s booth at Watches & Wonders in Geneva, there’s no doubt which sporting event they’re most excited about this year. Suspended from the ceiling is the harlequin-patterned hull of the prototype Luna Rossa training yacht, a version of which will challenge for the 37th America’s Cup in Barcelona later this year. Measuring 12 metres in length and weighing 2100kg, it’s a very literal demonstration of precisely what floats Panerai’s boat.
That’s just the most immediate example of Panerai’s current obsession. Alessandro Ficarelli, Panerai’s Chief Marketing Officer, points out that the brand’s entire 560m² booth at W&W is, in fact, modelled to replicate the industrial hangar of the Luna Rossa naval base in Cagliari, Sicily. “That’s the headquarters of Luna Rossa where they trained for this and the previous America’s Cup,” he says excitedly. “It’s where a team of engineers and sportsmen do all the research and development.”
Just in case the nautical tie-in still isn’t hitting home, all of Panerai’s novelties for Watches & Wonders are explicitly linked to their Luna Rossa partnership. They bear the team’s name on the straps, and share the yacht’s black and red livery. Make no mistake, Panerai are going all-in.
And I have to admit, I’m slightly mystified by this wholehearted commitment. Obviously, I know that the America’s Cup is a big deal and that millions tuned in to watch the Emirates Team New Zealand triumph over Luna Rossa in 2021. But in real-world terms, sailing is still a pretty niche sport to base the sum total of your marketing efforts around. Nor is this contest particularly accessible to outsiders. The America’s Cup, in fact, seems almost bafflingly arcane with the rules determined not by a federation but by the previous winners, who set everything from the location – anywhere in the world – to the race length and the specifications of the boats’ key design characteristics. Basically, I just don’t get it. So what I want Ficarelli to explain is why Panerai’s monomania for Luna Rossa America’s Cup team makes sense for the brand.
Flying the flag
“First of all, this is a true Italian story,” Ficarelli says patiently. “Panerai and Luna Rossa are both Italian, we’re both legends of the sea, and we both develop reliable technical instruments for modern-day heroes.”
This requires a little unpacking, but it’s a reminder of a key point in the America’s Cup that’s increasingly obscured by all the heavy-handed sponsorship. National sentiment is indeed at play in the America’s Cup. The Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli team that Panerai sponsors is an Italian syndicate owned by the Prada CEO Patrizio Bertelli. Alinghi Red Bull Racing compete under the colours of Switzerland’s Société Nautique de Genève. INEOS Britannia is the British sailing team, the Orient Express Racing Team is French while Emirates Team New Zealand are the Kiwis. All those commercial prefixes are admittedly a little distracting, but ultimately the America’s Cup is international sport disguised in luxury branding.
That’s important, because Panerai’s nationality is central to the brand’s identity. That’s been the case ever since Giovanni Panerai opened his first shop in 1860 at Ponte alle Grazie in Florence, which subsequently became the city’s first watchmaking school. Backing Luna Rossa team is therefore for Panerai to publicly reaffirm their Italian credentials and fly the flag in an international pursuit.
Crucially, too, that pursuit that doesn’t take place on dry land. Panerai has a deep connection to the sea that stretches back to 1936 when Officine Panerai made its first prototype of an underwater watch for the crack commandos of the Italian Navy’s submarine group. Ever since, Panerai’s has kept its feet wet with its military-inspired diving models gaining a cult following. The America’s Cup carries a similarly briny tang and so feeds into this aquatic history, albeit in a multi-million dollar yacht rather than a wetsuit.
It also does so in a way that conforms to the aspirational image that luxury brands adore. The America’s Cup is a prestigious event mainly because it represents the pinnacle of sailing, a sport that oozes affluent cachet. The cost of entry to the America’s Cup is appropriately steep – it’s reported to have cost Sir Jim Ratcliffe £110 million (A$212 million) to have backed INEOS Britannia in the last event. Yet what adds to this upper-crust veneer is the heritage of the competition. The America’s Cup is often credited as being the world’s oldest international sporting event, with a history that stretches back to 1851, when the yacht America blew away a British fleet of Royal Squadron yachts by 20 minutes in a race around the Isle of Wight. Watching that triumph, Queen Victoria was reported to have asked who came in second. “There is no second,” came the reply.
The America’s Cup is therefore a marketing unicorn that combines modern-day luxury with old-world heritage. That exclusive double-whammy is catnip for high-end brands, with Louis Vuitton returning as this year’s event title partner. You get a sense of just how valued the event must be when you consider that the full title of the Italian team – the Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli team – manages to shoehorn not just one but two brands into its convoluted moniker. Watch companies are invariably keen to get in on the America’s Cup action, too. While Panerai have been the official sponsor of Luna Rossa since 2019, Omega continues to serve as the event’s timing partner, while the likes of Zenith, Bremont, Ulysse Nardin, and Louis Vuitton have all having produced tie-in watches over the years.
Spirit of innovation
Yet all this is really the background, Ficarelli explains. For Panerai, the area of the America’s Cup that directly informs their product is its spirit of hi-tech innovation. He draws attention to the fact that the Luna Rossa yacht is a high-performance masterpiece of cutting-edge design. Housed in the sleek and powerful lines of the AC75 foiling monohull, it’s capable of reaching speeds close to 50 knots (about 100 km/h). Creating a boat of capable of achieving such feats required nautical engineers to explore the latest forms of material science. One area the racing boats utilise is the “ceramisation” of steel parts to reduce friction in order to enhance overall efficiency and speed.
This aspect fired the imagination of Panerai’s watchmakers with the introduction of the Panerai Submersible QuarantaQuattro Luna Rossa. Water-resistant to 500 metres, it’s made of Ti Ceramitech, a new material that’s super-light and ten times tougher than ceramic. Its development took seven years of R&D at the Laboratorio di Idee at the Panerai Manufacture in Neuchâtel.
“This new material is very special because we start from titanium grade 5 that we put through a process called ‘electrolytic plasma oxidation’,” Ficarelli explains. “This transforms the material from titanium to ceramic, creating this thick and dense layer of ceramic that is about 20 to 30 microns. If you consider that DLC is a coating one to three microns, it means that it’s very thick, very intense. But the beauty is that the watch is super light – 44% lighter than steel.”
The Submersible Tourbillon GMT Luna Rossa Experience Edition takes similar inspiration. It’s made from Carbotech, Panerai’s composite material based on carbon fibre – the material that comprises most of the hull of the Luna Rossa boat.
Panerai was also influenced, Ficarelli explains, through engaging directly with the Luna Rossa team. Yet the same is true of the sailing team themselves. Ficarelli mentions, for example, that the Luna Rosa team’s engineer and team director are actually due to visit the Panerai manufacturer the very next week to draw on their knowledge in a bid “to fix some small elements in the foil arm of the boat”. This, in other words, is very much a two-way partnership.
It’s confirmation that Panerai and Luna Rosa don’t just share technical know-how but brand values. Yoked together by the sea and their common nationality, both are committed to pushing new boundaries in performance and technology. As Ficarelli explains with a smile, “This isn’t just about putting a logo on a boat.”