For Luna Rossa, the Ocean is more than a racecourse. It is the environment where performance, technology and experience come together — and where understanding changing conditions is part of everyday life.

This relationship with the sea also extends beyond competition. Together with Ogyre, Luna Rossa supports a series of initiatives that connect marine and coastal waste collection, pollution prevention and environmental monitoring. Different actions, but one common idea: what happens beyond the racecourse matters too.

The collaboration between Ogyre and Luna Rossa began around the 37th America’s Cup in Barcelona, with a commitment to support the collection of 28,000 kg of marine waste.

Ahead of the next America’s Cup in Naples, that commitment has expanded significantly. Luna Rossa is supporting the collection of an additional 280,000 kg — ten times the original target — bringing the total to 308,000 kg of marine litter and coastal waste by 2028. Of this amount, more than 107,000 kg of materials are expected to be recovered through recycling.

The activities are carried out through Ogyre’s global network in Italy, Brazil, Indonesia and Senegal. At sea, local fishers collect waste that has already dispersed into marine environments, while local communities intercept coastal waste before it can reach the sea.

Fishers are at the heart of Ogyre’s model also because of the deep knowledge of the sea they have developed through years of work. They understand its currents, winds and local dynamics, and know where waste tends to accumulate under different conditions. This daily experience helps them identify and reach these accumulation areas more effectively, contributing to the collection of waste before it disperses further into the marine environment.

👉 Discover more about Luna Rossa's commitment with Ogyre

A global collection effort is most effective when it is matched by action in the places where people live, work and use the sea every day. For this reason, the broader commitment is complemented by a local and continuous intervention at Luna Rossa’s base in Cagliari, bringing marine pollution prevention directly into the team’s everyday environment.

Here, Ogyre and Luna Rossa installed a Marine Bin that operates 24/7 in the waters surrounding the base. The system captures floating waste, filters microplastics down to 2 mm, and can absorb pollutants such as oils and hydrocarbons.

The initiative creates a permanent collection point in the same waters used for daily activities, showing how protecting the Ocean also means acting locally, where waste can be intercepted before it disperses further.

👉 Discover more about Luna Rossa's Marine Bin initiative

Luna Rossa’s chase boats spend many hours at sea supporting training activities. Their onboard instruments already measure parameters such as wind speed and direction, atmospheric pressure, air temperature and sea-surface temperature.

Through data aggregators introduced as part of the collaboration with Ogyre, these measurements gain an additional purpose. The information is collected, organised and made available through EMODnet Physics, transforming the chase boats into mobile monitoring points while they carry out their normal activities.

Repeated observations from different routes can contribute to a broader picture of Mediterranean conditions and provide useful data for scientific monitoring, weather and oceanographic forecasting, and the study of changes in sea temperature over time.

👉 Discover more about Luna Rossa's Citizen Science initiative

The same relationship between technology and direct observation also shapes how Luna Rossa reads the racecourse itself. America’s Cup rules limit the use of certain instruments and automated systems for collecting and analysing weather information during racing, so technology is only part of the picture: experience and the ability to interpret local conditions remain essential.

This is where Beyond the Racecourse begins.

Set in the Gulf of Naples, the short film brings together Luna Rossa sailor Vittorio Bissaro and Alfonso Pellegrino, a fisher from Ogyre’s Italian fleet. Alfonso has worked in these waters for years, developing the kind of local knowledge that comes from experiencing the same environment every day: how the wind changes, how currents move and how the sea behaves under different conditions.

The encounter creates a dialogue between two ways of reading the sea. One is shaped by high-performance sailing, technology and data; the other by daily observation and experience.

It also brings the idea behind Ogyre’s model full circle. The same fishers who are well positioned to collect waste from the sea are also people with a deep, practical knowledge of the environments in which they work. Beyond the Racecourse places that knowledge alongside Luna Rossa’s technological approach, showing the Gulf of Naples not only as the setting for the next America’s Cup, but as a living ecosystem to understand and protect.