America’s Cup
Defender and Challenger of Record give glimpse of Protocol for 37th America’s Cup

The Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron (RNZYS) and Defender Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) along with the Royal Yacht Squadron Ltd (RYSL) and Challenger of Record INEOS Team UK today announce exciting initiatives to be included as part of the Protocol for the 37th America’s Cup due to be published November 17th.

With the AC75 remaining as the centrepiece of the dramatic America’s Cup racing for at least the next two editions, a new class of boat, the one design AC40 foiling monohull, is being introduced as a new multipurpose class which will help expand pathways into the main event.

The AC40 will be a dynamic, powerful, and super-fast scaled down version of the AC75 that will see it reach similar speeds to its big sister at times. The intention is for the new class to be the catalyst to accelerate participation in the America’s Cup from the global talent pool of female and youth foiling sailors via separate AC37 Women’s and Youth America’s Cup regattas as part of the overall 37th America’s Cup event schedule at the Host Venue.

RNZYS Commodore Aaron Young said, “Creating pathways and increasing participation for women, youth and emerging nations is something that has been a priority since winning in 2017. In fact, universally it is seen as something that will only benefit everyone in the sport of sailing and was illustrated in the 20 entries, we received to our mixed crew Youth AC that was initially planned for 2021, prior to COVID19.

To now be announcing the AC40’s as the exciting class that will be used by AC teams for their scale testing and development, Match Race training, Preliminary Regattas and then for the Women’s and Youth events makes complete sense.”

Emirates Team New Zealand CEO Grant Dalton explains the detail behind the class and the regattas, “All of the competing teams must purchase at least one AC40 which will be used in the Preliminary Regattas, and then made available for the respective and independent Women’s and Youth regattas to be held at the venue of the AC37 Match.”

“The yacht clubs of competing AC teams must enter both the Women’s and Youth events, however entries will also be open to other countries and yacht clubs.

We would certainly anticipate an entry from the Host country if in fact they do not have an America’s Cup team”.

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Sail World
America's Cup: New AC40 provides AC75 pathway for Women, Youth and new teams

For the first time in 170 years of America's Cup history, women will be able to compete in an America's Cup Women's Regatta, using the new AC40 one design foiling monohull, which will have multiple uses in the 37th America's Cup cycle – writes Richard Gladwell.

It was announced jointly by the Defender and Challenger of Record for the 37th Match, the AC40, which will provide a pathway for women and youth sailors into the America's Cup itself.

For a start-up America's Cup team, the AC40 offers an excellent pathway and first step into the Big League.

Emirates Team New Zealand's CEO Grant Dalton told Sail-World that as well as being used for America's Cup Preliminary Regatta events, teams would now be able to run multiple boats as practice for AC75 racing.

The AC40 can be taken out of Class by the teams and used as a platform for their test programs. It will then have to be put back into Class and remeasured before competing in official AC40 events.

"There will be some componentry on the AC40 which is removable. For example, if you want test foil wings, you unbolt the one-design wings and re-fit the test ones. Or, you can put a different rig in it or take off the automatic pilot."

Initial run of seven boats

Construction of the new design will start later this year, and the first boat is not expected to be sailing until October 2022. The AC40's and their respective components will be built by multiple licensed builders using tooling developed during the construction of the first AC40.

"It takes a while to design a boat like this. They don't just pop out structurally," Dalton explains.

Only some preliminary AC40 design work has been done to date.

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Sail World
Surprise Spanish move ups tempo of AC37 venue bidding just days before big decision

Major developments have occurred in the selection race ahead of the formal announcement of the venue for the 37th America's Cup, expected sometime next week – writes Richard Gladwell.

One of the groups working to host the 37th America's Cup in the Spanish city of Valencia has announced their withdrawal from venue hosting race for the 37th America's Cup.

It has emerged that there is a second Spanish bid that is also a serious player, which is an "All of Spain" approach. It will have the America's Cup Match and its preliminary events sailed at several venues, including Barcelona - the venue for the 1992 Olympics, and Valencia - the venue for the 2007 and 2010 America's Cups.

Following the announcement by the promoter of the Valencia bid, it emerged that there is a second group of Spanish promoters in play, identified as Francesco do Leo, Hugo Moran and Pablo Beltran, who do have the financial backing of the Spanish Government for a broader-based project.

In a written statement, the All Spain group advised: "We can confirm that our discussions with Team New Zealand and America's Cup Event Ltd continue to advance forward very positively with the backing of the Prime Minister of Spain and the central Spanish Government continuing to work with us to finalise details and event proposals. These discussions started some months back and continue to move forward as we approach the host venue decision deadline," the All-Spain group said in a written statement.

"The overall mission is to engage the whole country, Spain, and each and every single community to be part of a world class, transformational event, like the America's Cup. This is not an event promoting a single city, but it promotes Spain as a leading hub for iconic sport events and innovation in field of sustainability.

"The 37th America's Cup represents a fundamental step into continuing to promote the America's Cup as the most prestigious trophy in the world.

"We are delighted to support Grant Dalton and Team New Zealand in writing a new page in the history of the America's. Cup. We are confident that together with Spain, Team New Zealand and ACE will succeed in delivering a stellar performance, that will contribute to engage and excite a global audience of passionate supporters who share the goal to make the world a better place".

Ireland very confident

From Ireland, one of the four venues remaining under consideration, sailing an marine website afloat.ie reported that the Irish bid centred around Cork harbour had been "boosted by a buoyant Irish government' cost-benefit analysis' prediction into the possibilities of an Irish staging of the world's third-biggest sporting event."

"According to an Afloat source, the unpublished report is currently "stuck in the Dept of Sport" but reveals it could be worth €500m to Ireland.

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NZ Herald
America's Cup: Spain, Ireland and Saudi Arabia firm up as possible hosts

Valencia has withdrawn from the race to host the 37th America's Cup – but Spain is still very much in it – writes Paul Lewis.

International yachting sources have confirmed that a second Spanish bid is being made, dampening some of the rumours doing the rounds in sailing circles that the Saudis are at the front of the queue with a big-money bid to hold the regatta in Jeddah.

Team New Zealand's announcement of the new one-design AC40 yacht that will help expand pathways into the main event, particularly for women, also contained a largely overlooked line. It said the 37th America's Cup will be a multi-challenger event – effectively closing the door on the proposed one-on-one challenge at Cowes between Team NZ and Ineos Team UK.

So Spain (probably Barcelona), Cork in Ireland and Jeddah remain potential venues, one of whom is likely to be named on Friday.

The second Spanish bid is a surprise in that all attention had previously been focused on Valencia – which has the infrastructure from the 2007 America's Cup all waiting and ready to go. Unfortunately, they also have large debts remaining from that previous hosting; local authorities could not promise more money – confirming their withdrawal from the race yesterday.

The compelling feature of the second Spanish bid is that it is powered by government money and has the backing of the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, and the central government. No single city has been named but Barcelona seems a distinct possibility.

Spain has long been involved with, and interested in, the Cup. Its Desafio Espanol challengers competed in 2000 and 2007 and Spanish brewer Estrella Damm was a prominent Team NZ sponsor for a time.

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However, while the Herald understands that Barcelona and Cork in Ireland are still in the race, rumours that Jeddah has already signed up as the venue may be overstated.

The popular misconception is that the Saudis are throwing boatloads of cash to secure such events. They do, though there is no sign yet that some of the figures bandied about are anything but speculation.

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The Ocean Race
In Memoriam -- Jack Lloyd

The Ocean Race family is mourning the loss of Jack Lloyd, who served as our Race Director, developing and managing the event rules as well as the class rules for the VO70 and VO65 classes for more than 10 years, beginning with the 2008-09 edition of the race.

Prior to that Jack had been on the Race Jury for three consecutive races. In all, Jack was part of our family for seven editions of the race, all of it in service to the sailors and teams he loved to watch compete.

Jack passed away in New Zealand on Friday.

While we mourn his loss, equally, we celebrate his life and his time with us.

Jack spent his entire life around boats, and turned his passion into his work, first running his own sailmaking and rigging business in New Zealand for 30 years, before working as a Rules Advisor to America’s Cup teams and the New Zealand Olympic Sailing Team, and eventually finding his way onto the Jury for what was the final Whitbread Round the World Race in 1997-98.

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