Launched in September 2018, the new 72-foot Maxi yacht Bella Mente looks to be on course for attaining successes not unlike those achieved by its three previous namesakes owned and skippered by businessman and champion sailor Hap Fauth (Minneapolis, Minn./Naples, Fla.). Fauth and his all-star Bella Mente Racing Team are three-time Maxi 72 World champions shooting for a fourth world title while Fauth concurrently spearheads the New York Yacht Club’s American Magic challenge for the 2021 America’s Cup. And while juggling two of the world’s highest-profile sailing campaigns with running an industrial holding company the size of The Churchill Companies might be daunting to some, it only further energizes Fauth.

“If I were to wait two or three years, I might not have the same motivation to do this type of thing, so why not do it now?” said Fauth, age 73, after breaking the elapsed-time monohull record with the new Bella Mente in December’s 60-mile Wirth M. Munroe Regatta (Miami to Palm Beach).  “And besides, two sailing programs are twice the fun.”

According to Fauth, the Wirth M. Munroe Regatta was about testing Bella Mente in the notoriously rugged Gulf Stream before its first major race of 2019: the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s (RORC) Caribbean 600 in February. “There was no breakage, no mysterious sounds. The boat feels great; it’s very well balanced and easy to put in a groove and keep it there.”

The new Bella Mente was designed by Botin Partners in Spain and built at New England Boatworks in Rhode Island, where the boat went through seven days of sea trials after its launch. Terry Hutchinson, Bella Mente’s longtime tactician, who also is working with Fauth on the American Magic project, said he could tell “straightaway” that the boat was a winner.

“We dropped off some pretty big waves in Narragansett Bay and didn’t have to go in for anything going wrong,” said Hutchinson, explaining that Bella Mente was then shipped to West Palm Beach for more sea trials. The team sailed in more big waves and “nasty short, sharp chop…max runner, max mainsheet load; everything was wound on.” Everything hung in there; there were no issues.

“These are intricate boats, and the reason that happened is because of all the people that paid incredible attention to detail,” said Hutchinson. “It starts with the Captain (Peter Henderson) and follows through to the shore team and the build team.”

Hutchinson said the original plan had been to launch the boat and go straight to the 2018 Worlds; however, in the end it was determined that the schedule was too tight. “Had we done that, however, I think that the shore team and sailing crew would have done an unbelievable job of executing, and the boat would have performed just fine.” Though it’s a new boat, the sailing team (including offshore helmsman and crew boss Mike Sanderson, navigator Ian Moore and strategist Adrian Stead) is much the same as it has been for five years.

“We have guys that own their areas of expertise, and they’ve done laps around the world,” said Hutchinson. “We have good balance across the wide spectrum of racing that we do, and for the better part of three years the Bella Mente Racing Team has had a 75% winning percentage of regattas entered. It’s hard to complain about that.”

As for how he and Fauth will balance the two sailing campaigns, Hutchinson is direct with his answer: “Proper planning, clear objectives.”

Fauth agreed that the Bella Mente campaign will have its own energy separate from the American Magic campaign. “We’re going at this with the same discipline, the same passion and same commitment that we’ve applied to every one of our Maxi 72 campaigns,” he said. “We have the best people, the best resources, and we approach our sailing in the most efficient manner to get the best results.”

As CEO of the American Magic syndicate, Fauth says he and the other principals (Doug DeVos, Roger Penske) are giving their all to help their team progress to the America’s Cup finals to compete against defender Emirates Team New Zealand for the oldest trophy in international sport.

“It’s a path I’ve never been down before, but I’m pretty convinced I can handle this and the Bella Mente campaign at the same time,” said Fauth, pausing before laughing. “I have a great capacity for pain!”

Sponsors for Bella Mente Racing include Churchill Yachts, DICKEY-john, ESC, New England Boatworks, Spectrum, Tekran and TSI.

Bella Mente’s 2019 regatta calendar can be found here. For more information, visit https://bellamenteracing.com/. Follow Bella Mente Racing on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Media Pro Int’l, Kirsten Ferguson, kirsten.ferguson@mediapronewport.com, 401-330-7889

NEWPORT, R.I. (February 8, 2018) – Hap Fauth (Minneapolis, Minn./Naples, Fla.) and his team on Bella Mente Racing made their first big splash onto the grand prix racing scene back in 2006, and this year the three-time Maxi 72 World Champions are preparing to make more waves with the launch of a new state-of-the-art Maxi 72 yacht. Designed by Botin Partners and built by New England Boatworks, the yacht is the fourth under the Bella Mente namesake and is set to be unveiled this July in Newport, R.I., just in time to be shipped to Porto Cervo, Sardinia for the 2018 Rolex Maxi 72 Worlds in September.

“I’m excited to dive into the development and build of a new yacht again and go through the process of figuring out how to optimize boat speed and get back into competition mode,” said Fauth, adding humorously that his team’s nickname among competitors is “Experimente” due to the in-depth testing and analyzing they perform on the boat each season. “When you’re sailing at this level, even the smallest details can be game changers. As we move forward with this new build, no stone can be left unturned.”

For New England Boatworks, this will be the third Bella Mente that it has built for Fauth. Located in Portsmouth, R.I, the premier boatyard is responsible for some of the world’s most high-performance yachts. The new Bella Mente build began this past December, and the boatyard team, as well as a team of Bella Mente Racing boatbuilders, are working in overdrive to ensure the yacht launches this summer.

“The Maxi 72 represents the epitome of the sport of sailing, so it is very exciting to be leading the charge on a project of this caliber,” said New England Boatworks Partner Tom Rich, adding that the class has gained more and more traction over the years, resulting in the International Maxi Association tightening up the rules in 2017. The class now strictly abides by the owner/driver rule, and all the yachts must fit the 72-foot length requirement. There is also a rating cap that narrows the performance differences between each yacht.

“Although there are very specific guidelines that we as builders and the designers must abide by, there is also quite a bit of room for innovation. Even the most subtle change can make a big difference.”

In addition to working together, Rich and Fauth have been friends for decades. “We have mutual respect for one another, and I certainly enjoy his company. He’s a very good sailor with a great gut instinct, and he’s very interested in getting knowledge out of people. He enjoys all the small and steady steps taken to improve the boat and its performance. “

When it comes to the team, the majority of Bella Mente Racing’s crew will stay the same as the previous year. Fauth will be joined in the afterguard by Volvo Ocean Race champion Mike Sanderson, two-time Olympian Adrian Stead and Tactician Terry Hutchinson, a two-time Rolex Yachtsman of the Year.

“It’s great to be on our way to getting the boat launched and racing to see what we can learn, but it will be a development process for sure,” said Hutchinson, adding that there are six Maxi 72s currently on the competitive race circuit, two of which are newer builds and didn’t hit their stride on the racecourse until either their third or fourth season. “Newer design and newer construction doesn’t guarantee a better result, but it does buy us time to begin the process of developing and optimizing the boat for the future. Our first challenge this year will be to quantify where we left off in 2017 with sail development, and our second challenge is to understand the dynamic of the rig and how the sail program interacts with it. From there, we need to learn the new boat’s mode versus the rest of the Maxi 72 fleet, which is the most critical component. With that said, we certainly have an exciting year on the horizon.”