It's official, Francesco de Angelis and Luna Rossa Challenge have now jointly decided to divorce.

"It's a normal alternance", explained the Italian syndicate in a very laconic statement. "Sport is cycles. Some are opened up when others are finished".

Born in Naples in 1960, Francesco de Angelis is the only Italian skipper to have ever won the Louis Vuitton Cup (in 2000 in Auckland) and was the skipper and leader of the Luna Rossa Challenge in Valencia.

He is known as a perfect gentleman in the cut-throat world of America's Cup racing, one of the nicest people around the event and now a truly sympathetic figure.

A new cycle is now open and the main question is who is going to succeed him aboard a fourth Luna Lossa incarnation.