La Roche-Posay has closed out its summer development block in Lorient, and skipper Quentin Delapierre says the AC75 program is exactly where it needs to be heading into the venue change for the Louis Vuitton 38th America’s Cup. In a new recon video from the America’s Cup channel, Delapierre walks through two full testing blocks spent balancing reliability, crew experience and raw boat speed on the water off Brittany.
The team used the Lorient base to trial a new M3 mainsail, checking everything from luff shape to exit speed out of maneuvers before pushing into windward-leeward laps and longer reaching legs in a building sea breeze. Delapierre is candid that fielding a partially new crew this week made the steady progress toward clean laps and reliable foiling all the more encouraging. For a challenger syndicate still building institutional knowledge on a new platform, that kind of week-on-week gain matters as much as outright pace.
Why La Roche-Posay Sees Lorient as a Springboard
What stands out most is Delapierre’s framing of Lorient not as an isolated test site but as infrastructure the team is confident will translate. He points to the wind conditions, the marine industry cluster around the base, and the structural integrity of the boat itself as reasons the program is ready to transplant its findings to Naples’ lighter, flatter waters. Calling this the end of the commissioning phase is significant — it signals La Roche-Posay is moving from proving the platform works to actively racing it faster.
La Roche-Posay Looks Toward Naples
With the venue shift now the operational priority, the real test will be how directly this Lorient groundwork carries over. Readers following the broader recon coverage from Naples, including our look at how Emirates Team New Zealand read the Naples racetrack, will find useful context here — every syndicate is wrestling with the same question of what translates from home waters to the 2027 host city.
Video courtesy of Louis Vuitton 38th America's Cup Naples, Italy — watch the full video on YouTube.
