The Spanish Quarter in Naples, built by Don Pedro de Toledo in the 16th century to house the Spanish military garrison guarding the city, played an unlikely but fitting host recently to a night of America's Cup history.
Government officials, teams, athletes, sponsors and event organisers gathered for the European premiere of "Mighty Mary", a documentary telling the story of the 1995 America's Cup and the all-women's team assembled by billionaire Bill Koch.
Koch formed the team in an attempt to win the Defender selection trials, then known as the Citizen Cup, and defend the America's Cup for the San Diego Yacht Club.
At heart, it's a human story. The women's team came together under Dawn Riley, herself a winning member of the 1992 America³ syndicate, after newspaper adverts went out calling for the country's most able female athletes and sailors. What followed was a punishing programme of on-water and off-water training, built around a design programme that had already proven itself.
Narrated by Hugh Jackman and Elizabeth Banks, the film captures a very different socio-political era. Sport was shifting, attitudes were shifting, but male machismo and bravado still ran deep.
The Mighty Mary team started strongly, faded through the opening round robins of the Citizen Cup, then found their form again once their new IACC yacht arrived. They closed the gap on the fleet and, in a do-or-die race against Dennis Conner's Stars and Stripes, appeared to win.
Or so they thought.
A backroom deal struck in the dead of night before that race kept Conner in the competition regardless of the result. The justification given was the defence of the America's Cup itself, and the need to find the fastest boat to face a rapid Team New Zealand under Sir Peter Blake.
It was a bitter pill for the Mighty Mary sailors, and one that still rankles today. Conner went on to win the Citizen Cup by the narrowest of margins, in a race that was effectively shut down, only to lose 5-0 to the Kiwis in the Match. It remains the last time the USA has featured in an America's Cup final.
Directed by former Olympic rower Mary Mazzio, who travelled to Naples for the screening, the film was followed by an on-stage interview with double Olympic gold medallist Shirley Robertson. For Cup followers, it's essential viewing, proof that this competition is won as much off the water as on it.
What made the evening genuinely special was the reunion. So many of the original Mighty Mary sailors made the trip to Naples, some seeing each other for the first time in roughly 30 years. Bringing that team back together, in the sport they helped reshape, felt like a moment worth marking properly.
Speaking afterwards, Mazzio was ebullient. "What a full circle moment for the institution of the Cup that has, in the past, been stubbornly resistant to change," she said. "To have the America's Cup celebrate the legacy of this all-women's team, it's magical and what's so exciting is their story, which has been like a hidden gem in history, kind of lost to the dustbin of history is now going to ripple out for generations. And that is unbelievably exciting."
Asked what the film represents, now that it is on worldwide release, she added: "It stands really for the simple principle that strength is equally distributed, talent is equally distributed, intelligence is equally distributed. It's access and opportunity that are not. And this is 'Exhibit A' to what happens when you open up the umbrella of access."
