The New York YC’s American Magic was 0-2 with its America’s Cup challenges, and given its early eliminations from AC36 and AC37, the money burn rate was high and the return on investment low. It’s all par for the course with the America’s Cup. After decamping from Barcelona to the team’s base in Pensacola, Florida, there was plenty of lip service about another go at the Cup in Naples, Italy in 2028, but in October, what was a hard maybe became a hard pass.

They didn’t agree with the final Protocol or the defender’s proposed scheme to take management of the regatta out of the hands of Emirates Team New Zealand and into the hands of a quasi-independent governing body called the “America’s Cup Partnership.” With American Magic’s exit, for the first time in Cup history, there may be no American syndicate.

“After extensive engagement with the Defender, Challenger of Record and fellow teams, we’ve concluded that the present structure does not provide the framework for American Magic to operate a highly competitive and financially sustainable campaign for the 38th America’s Cup,” said Doug DeVos, American Magic owner, in a team statement. “We care deeply about the America’s Cup and what it represents. However, for a team committed to long-term excellence, alignment around financial viability and competitive performance is essential. At this time, we don’t believe those conditions are in place for American Magic to challenge.”

Terry Hutchinson, the team’s sailing director, says American Magic’s exit is more of a “hiatus” that will allow them to instead prioritize building “a sustainable platform for high-performance sailing in the United States.” While winning the America’s Cup was always the goal, Hutchinson says they can now focus on their parallel effort to build what they envision as a pipeline of top-level American sailors, designers, engineers and boatbuilders. The shift in priorities, Hutchinson adds, will also allow them to bolster the underperforming U.S. Olympic sailing program by diverting funds and resources to private organizations supporting athletes, including AmericaOne Racing and the Sailing Foundation of New York.

According to Hutchinson, American Magic’s issues with the Protocol and the America’s Cup Partnership primarily revolved around concerns with the event’s commercial structure and future governance, and specifically, what the team felt was the lack of a clear and sustainable financial model. American Magic sought a structure where investors could reasonably expect to recoup their investments within a couple of cycles, but found the proposed model too risky and not conducive to such a goal. The model, Hutchinson says, would require ongoing support from private individuals and yacht club members rather than evolving into a self-sustaining, profitable sporting entity.

SailGP, he says, has the right model, borrowing many of its elements straight from Formula 1’s playbook. And SailGP may well be in the team’s future.

The focus for American Magic and its skeleton crew of engineers, boat builders and sailors in Pensacola is to now take a measured and strategic approach to winding down its America’s Cup operations and assets. Hutchinson says that process includes evaluating the potential to support another American team, should one step up to fill the void, which is not likely at this point. “We would always be open to supporting another American team if somebody wanted to step forward and take it on,” he says. “But it’s not a small undertaking.”

Still, they’re not rushing to fire sale all of their AC assets either, which include a pair each of AC75 and AC40s, containers full of parts and spares, assorted gear and foil sets, not to mention priceless design and performance data and intellectual property. While now officially out of AC38, Hutchinson says they remain cautious and “prefer not to make hasty decisions that could close doors to future America’s Cup involvement.”

Instead, Hutchinson says, they intend to keep their foot wedged in the America’s Cup door and would conceivably field teams into the planned Women’s and Youth America’s Cup AC40 regattas—should American Magic be invited to race. “We want to be good stewards for the America’s Cup,” he says, so the plan is to wait, observe how the event evolves and keep the possibility open for a future return.

For now however, the Olympics, and custom boatbuilding, take precedence, and for this, there are ample resources at American Magic’s Pensacola base. Hutchinson stresses that the goal is to build on existing Olympic systems already in place with US Sailing and elsewhere, rather than disrupting them.

“I think the first way to make the connection is to not impede progress that is already happening,” he says. “There’s a great system already in place, so our role over the next two and a half years is to learn the system that they have and support it where we can. We should make sure that every US sailor that goes to the Olympics in a boat that is immaculately prepared and perfect.”

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Athena Racing has announced that world-renowned sailor and high-performance executive Ian Walker has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of its America’s Cup Challenge. Walker is no stranger to the America’s Cup, having skippered Britain’s Wight Lightning in the 31st America’s Cup in 2003. He has also led three Ocean Race campaigns, culminating in victory in the 2014–15 edition with Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing.

His focus then moved to leading high-performance teams off the water. Walker served as Performance Director for the British Sailing Team, overseeing a hugely successful campaign that saw the team top the sailing medal table at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, winning five medals, including three golds. Following that, he joined North Sails, leading their expert UK sailmaking team for the past three years.

Walker joins the team following the recent announcement of the new America’s Cup Partnership (ACP). The Partnership will be led by an independent management team, moving away from a “winner-takes-all” model to one of mutual governance. Each competing team holds a seat on the board, with a shared focus on commercial growth, long-term investment in the event, and continued technical development and innovation across future America’s Cup competitions, which will now be contested every two years.

A two-time Olympic medalist, Walker expressed his excitement on returning to the sharp end of elite competition. “It’s an exciting moment to return to the America’s Cup with a British challenge that has the continuity of the last three campaigns, alongside the recent creation of the America’s Cup Partnership (ACP). That was a big part of my decision to take this on, because I believe in what the ACP is trying to achieve—creating a sustainable, viable commercial business model for the competition.

I’ve also worked with several members of the team previously, which gives me real confidence in what we’re building together.   

“The Cup has evolved enormously since I was last involved in terms of the boats, the technology, and even the balance between sailors and designers. But at its core, it remains unchanged, it’s about managing your resources, getting the best out of your people, and making every second count, in a race against time, and the clock is ticking.”

The move reunites Walker with Athena Racing Team Principal Sir Ben Ainslie, a former Team GB teammate at the Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

“Ian is an exceptional leader with a proven track record of success with high-performance campaigns across the very top of our sport, there are very few people as qualified, both on and off the water,” said Ainslie.

Ainslie continued, “He also understands the complexity of running teams that need to be at the forefront of innovation and performance while meeting both budget and timeline demands. For AC38, that timeline is tight, and we needed a CEO who could hit the ground running and Ian can do that, he understands how to drive teams forward and the importance of continuity in achieving the ultimate goal.”

Walker concluded: “The America’s Cup transcends the sport of sailing and has so much untapped potential. I am excited about what lies ahead, just imagine how cool it would be for the team to win it for Britain.”

As INEOS Britannia, the team made history in 2024, as the first British team in 60 years to qualify for the America’s Cup Match, the first in 90 years to score points in the Match, and the first ever to win the America’s Cup Challenger Series. The achievements mark Britain’s most successful performance in the competition’s history.

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American Magic announced in late October that it would not compete in the 38th edition of the America’s Cup in Naples, Italy. According to a team statement, the decision to end a bid for a third Cup challenge, “follows a comprehensive review of the event’s current Protocol and Partnership Agreement and their alignment with the team’s long-term sporting and strategic objectives.

“After extensive engagement with the Defender, Challenger of Record, and fellow teams, we’ve concluded that the present structure does not provide the framework for American Magic to operate a highly competitive and financially sustainable campaign for the 38th America’s Cup”, said Doug DeVos, Team Principal of American Magic. “We care deeply about the America’s Cup and what it represents. However, for a team committed to long-term excellence, alignment around financial viability and competitive performance is essential. At this time, we don’t believe those conditions are in place for American Magic to challenge.”

Having extracted itself from the Cup while also retaining all its previous campaign assets, currently idle at the team’s base in Pensacola, Florida, the team will likely be looking to liquidate its AC40s, its two AC75s and containers of equipment to any team looking to take advantage of the new 38th Cup protocol which stipulates new teams may use existing platforms.

Unconfirmed rumors of entering a team into the SailGP may hint at what’s to come, and the team is also aligned with Nautor Swan to activate a new ClubSwan 28 US series in Pensacola and Newport, Rhode Island in 2026.

“Our focus now shifts to the future,” said Mike Cazer, CEO of American Magic. “That means athlete and technology development, international competition, and continuing to drive advanced manufacturing and design innovation from our base in Pensacola.”

Founded in 2017, American Magic has represented the New York Yacht Club in two America’s Cup campaigns and supports elite American sailors across senior, youth, and women’s disciplines. The team will continue to invest in the sport through its Pensacola-based high-performance center and international racing campaigns, including programs that support U.S. Olympic sailors. These efforts reinforce Pensacola’s role as a hub for top-tier American sailing talent.

“To our teammates, partners, donors, and supporters — thank you for standing with us,” said Terry Hutchinson, President of Sailing Operations. “We could never have accomplished what we have without you. You are a vital part of who we are.”

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Eccoli arrivare (here they come). In two years, seaside residents of Naples will bear witness to the arrival of the America’s Cup entourage to the Italian city of nearly 2 million people as, for the first time in Cup history, the Louis Vuitton Cup and Louis Vuitton America’s Cup Match will be sailed off the Italian shoreline in what’s promised to be “the most colorful and enthusiastic” edition ever.

While Barcelona put on quite a show for the world’s oldest ­international sports trophy, the Italians certainly have a ­reputation for hosting first-class sailing events, and with Italian challenger Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli finally holding court, it does promise to have the expected flair.

The announcement of Naples as host to the 38th edition ­followed months of silence from the defenders of Emirates Team New Zealand and the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron. While the defender’s own government declined to host and finance the regatta in Auckland, several remnant teams were keen for the regatta to remain in Europe. The Spanish port of Valencia, which hosted in 2017, seemed a viable choice, but the announcement of Italy comes as no surprise given the tenacity of Patrizio Bertelli, Prada’s chairman and kingpin of the Italian syndicate. Bertelli has been trying to win the Cup for more than three decades in the hopes of bringing the regatta home. He now has the opportunity to do so in a sea of red white and green.

In the mid-May host announcement, Andrea Abodi, Minister for Sport and Youth for Italy, said that ­hosting “represents a tremendous opportunity for the entire country to enhance the value of its territory, to boost tourism, and to ­promote sports.”

For Naples Mayor Gaetano Manfredi, the benefits of hosting are twofold: It puts an international spotlight on the city, as well as a long-overdue injection of development funds into the port of Bagnoli, 6 miles ­northwest of Naples.

According to America’s Cup and Naples government officials, Bagnoli will serve as the epicenter of team bases. It’s a “strategic area where the government has decided to invest decisively, with the goal of finally returning it to the city and its citizens,” Manfredi said. “The complex work of environmental remediation and redevelopment in Bagnoli is already underway and progressing according to plan. The America’s Cup will serve as a powerful accelerator for tourism, the maritime economy, local entrepreneurship, and the development of new skills, providing a tangible preview of what this area can become upon completion of its urban regeneration.”

The America’s Cup village and event activation zone is centered closer to the city, with the racecourse itself set in the Gulf of Naples off the 12th-century waterfront Castel dell’Ovo and Posillipo at the western flank of the Gulf. Historical winds on the Gulf of Naples persist in the 5- to 10-knot range, either from the northeast or southwest, with late spring and early fall being the most reliable for consistent breeze.

Grant Dalton, CEO of America’s Cup Defender Team New Zealand, said in the announcement: “There is a raw spirit and absolute pride in Italy that seems so appropriate to have the next America’s Cup here…. Italians are the most passionate and engaged America’s Cup audience, and obviously it is the home of Luna Rossa, who are such an amazing team and strong competitor. So, from the Defender’s position, it certainly feels like we are entering the lion’s den competitively, but from an event perspective, it feels like the perfect venue to host the Louis Vuitton 38th America’s Cup.”

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For the first time the Louis Vuitton Cup and Louis Vuitton America’s Cup Match will be sailed in Italy, a country with one of the most colorful and enthusiastic America’s Cup histories.

In 2027, the world will look to Italy and specifically to Naples, the capital of the Campania region in Italy, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most ancient cities in Europe, as it becomes the Host City for the world’s oldest international sports trophy.

The fight for the Louis Vuitton 38th America’s Cup will take place under the watchful shadow of Mt Vesuvius and just off the waterfront of the vibrant city. With a proud heritage and rich history, Italy and Naples offer the Louis Vuitton 38th America’s Cup an unparalleled experience that one way or another is certain to add to the myth, obsession, rivalry and innovation of the America’s Cup.

Andrea Abodi, Minister for Sport and Youth for Italy has played a key role in the bid process and is delighted for the announcement of the President of the Council of Ministers Giorgia Meloni about Italy as the Host Country for the Louis Vuitton 38th America’s Cup.

“The choice of Italy, and Naples in particular, as venue of the 38th edition of the America’s Cup represents a tremendous opportunity for the entire country to enhance the value of its territory, to boost tourism, and to promote sports,” Abodi says. “Our commitment will be also to promote initiatives, projects and measures for sea education and economy. The awarding of this edition is a great success. A team victory and I thank President Meloni, who from the very beginning recognized the deep meaning of bringing such an important international event to Italy, having a great sport, social, touristic and industrial impact.”

The major investment, organizational capabilities, and fulfilment of all necessary requirements testify to the preparation, expertise, and professionalism of a team that—working in concert with the Government, and led by Sport e Salute as the implementing body—has shown it has everything it takes to meet the expectations of all stakeholders, the rights holder of the competition, Team New Zealand, the winner of the last edition.

“Hosting the 38th America’s Cup in Naples represents an extraordinary international showcase for the beauty and history of our territory,” says Gaetano Manfredi, Mayor of Naples and Government Special Commissioner for Bagnoli. “We have worked diligently on this bid over the recent months in close collaboration with the Government, successfully prevailing over other competing cities. This achievement will generate a substantial economic impact on our territory, as experienced by previous host cities such as Barcelona and Valencia.

“The event is set to be the most significant sporting occasion ever hosted by Naples, transforming the city’s iconic Gulf into a stage for spectacular races among the world’s elite sailing teams. An opportunity to show the world not only the beauty of our landscape, but also the city’s ability to competently address the great challenges of the present. The races will take place in the waters between Castel dell’Ovo and Posillipo, while the team bases will be established in Bagnoli—a strategic area where the Government has decided to invest decisively, with the goal of finally returning it to the city and its citizens.

The complex work of environmental remediation and redevelopment in Bagnoli is already underway and progressing according to plan. The America’s Cup will serve as a powerful accelerator for tourism, the maritime economy, local entrepreneurship, and the development of new skills, providing a tangible preview of what this area can become upon completion of its urban regeneration. I would like to thank the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, the Minister for Sport and Youth, Andrea Abodi, and all the institutional and technical stakeholders involved for the trust placed in our city. Naples is ready and will continue to demonstrate its ability to deliver concrete results.”

Grant Dalton, CEO of America’s Cup Defender Team New Zealand said, “There is a raw spirit and absolute pride in Italy that seems so appropriate to have the next America’s Cup here. By bringing the Louis Vuitton 38th America’s Cup to this country, it feels like we are bringing it to the people, in our ambition to continually grow the audience of the America’s Cup and sport of sailing.

Italians are the most passionate and engaged America’s Cup audience and obviously it is the home of Luna Rossa who are such an amazing team and strong competitor. So, from the Defender’s position it certainly feels like we are entering the lion’s den competitively, but from an event perspective it feels like the perfect venue to host the Louis Vuitton 38th America’s Cup.”

Naples has played host to America’s Cup action in 2012 & 2013 in the lead up to the 34th America’s Cup, hosting two America’s Cup World Series events which local event officials estimated more than one million people turned up to watch the racing from the Naples waterfront over the week-long event.

The bid for Naples, Italy bought a clear ambition to leverage the America’s Cup as a means to modernize the city’s infrastructure while honoring its history and providing the spectacle of AC75 America’s Cup racing for the people of Italy.

As current holder and Trustee of the America’s Cup, the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron is looking forward to Naples, Italy being a vibrant catalyst for the continued growth of the America’s Cup. “Italy has long been one of Team New Zealand’s fiercest and most passionate rivals in the America’s Cup, and we are thrilled to see Naples, Italy named as the Host Venue for the Louis Vuitton 38th America’s Cup Match,” said Commodore David Blakey of the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron. “Bringing the Cup back to Europe—into the heart of one of the world’s most vibrant sailing communities—not only honurs the rich history of the event but also creates an incredible opportunity to showcase New Zealand sailing and innovation on a global stage.

Naples, Italy promises to be a spectacular setting for the Louis Vuitton 38th America’s Cup, as well as the Youth and Women’s regattas. We are proud to be defending the Cup there in 2027. Our Squadron members had an unforgettable experience travelling to Europe for the latest America’s Cup, and we look forward to delivering even more exclusive experiences and support opportunities in Naples, Italy.”

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Following a proper drubbing at the hands of America’s Cup defender Emirates Team New Zealand last October, the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, was anointed Challenger of Record for the 38th America’s Cup. The Squadron’s team, led by Sir Ben Ainslie and billionaire backer Sir James Ratcliffe, had clear unfinished business, but that business promptly soured to point of a public divorce and the possibility of two British Challengers: one under the banner of Ratcliff’s group and one led by Ainslie’s Athena Sports Group. INEOS Britannia is now walking away from the regatta after two failed attempts.

The news came this week in a statement from INEOS Sport, which announced that the team has “withdrawn its intention to challenge for the next America’s Cup.”

According to the statement, INEOS’ decision came after “protracted negotiation with Athena Racing Ltd…The agreement that had been reached with Athena Racing would have allowed both parties to compete in the next Cup but it depended on a rapid resolution.”

Athena Sports, they contend, failed to “bring the agreement to a timely conclusion,” and therefore “undermined its ability to prepare for the next Cup.”

While modern America’s Cup campaigns are indeed long-term efforts with in-house design teams continuing to push forward while awaiting a Protocol, venue and updated AC75 class rules, INEOS claim is dubious at best.

“The split was sharp, public, and frankly, a little bizarre given the team’s progress in Barcelona,” writes insider and British yachting journalist Justin Chisholm, who served with the America’s Cup recon program and its media operations in Barcelona. “Still, Ratcliffe insisted he wanted back in. He talked about a new campaign in partnership with Mercedes F1. Hinted at fresh ambition. But let’s be honest—nobody really believed he was all-in.”

Ratcliffe’s statement on the team’s termination was, “This was a very difficult decision to have taken following our challenge at the last two America’s Cups. We were the most successful British challenger in modern times with an exceptionally quick boat and we felt with the very effective input from the Mercedes F1 engineers, that we had a real chance at the next Cup. Unfortunately, the opportunity has slipped away.”

INEOS’s departure clears the table for Ainslie’s Athena Pathway to proceed as planned with the Royal Yacht Squadron Ltd.’s blessing as Challenger of Record, but it also leaves a substantial void in the financials of the team. Once the best funded of Barcelona’s challengers, the task now for Ainslie, Britain’s most beloved yachtsman, is to deliver a competitive challenge without Ratcliff’s purse.

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It’s mid-October, and the bases of Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, Alinghi Red Bull Racing and American Magic are ghost towns, save for shore teams decamping and craning chase boats onto the hard. All three have been dismissed from the Louis Vuitton Cup, leaving INEOS Britannia to eventually get crushed by Emirates Team New Zealand 7-2 in the 37th America’s Cup Match.

American Magic’s skipper and president of sailing operations, Terry Hutchinson, meets me at Gate M29, the high-­security entrance to the team’s Barcelona base. He escorts me through a second security gate and then through the team’s bike-storage room, usually jam-packed. With most of the team’s sailors and cyclors sent packing after three long years of going hard, there’s plenty of parking.

We continue to the front office, where boxed computer monitors sit among piles of cables and plugs, and then into the hospitality area, empty of visitors but with television screens still looping video of the team’s AC75 Patriot, sailing in fine trim. The boat itself is in the shed, decommissioned and wrapped for delivery to Pensacola, where the team will return in January for another possible run at the Cup.

Should there be another Cup challenge for American Magic, it will be their third. Auckland 2021 was a disaster marked by a ­catastrophic capsize. Barcelona was marginally better; this time bad luck was plentiful, resulting in a campaign that could have and should have had a stronger run to the match.

Hutchinson has just returned from a post-elimination decompression trip to Normandy, France. The team’s loss to Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli in the Louis Vuitton Cup’s second round-robin races still stings, he admits, but he’s working through exit interviews with team members and a “debrief document” for principals Doug DeVos and Hap Fauth.

“Figuring out where we were good. Where were we bad? How are we going to get better?” he says. “The hard part is that we can see how much we did well, and we can also see areas where we were dysfunctional, the interpersonal team relationships, and things that we could have done better.”

He’s not throwing ­anyone under the boat, except himself. American Magic’s failure to reach the match wasn’t because of a slow boat. “On the contrary,” Hutchinson says, glancing longingly at a video monitor across the empty room, admiring the sleek and shallow AC75 that he’s convinced was the fastest of the latest challenger fleet. “It’s hard to not feel that we underachieved again.”

In the “plus” column, however, he places the team’s operational efficiency, its financial standing, and a gem of a boat.

But bad luck is a cruel mistress with an ax to grind, and no one could have foreseen starting helmsman Paul Goodison falling down an open hatch, breaking ribs and getting sidelined at the most critical point of the series. His replacement, Lucas Calabrese, is plenty skilled, but the demands put upon him when thrust into the crux of ­competition were too great.

“He got thrown in at a really hard time against a competitor that had been together for six years. So, you can’t underestimate how good of a job they actually did in that series, and how good of a job Tommy (Slingsby, the starting starboard helmsman) did starting and ­winning the first cross.”

On Calabrese’s first day of Louis Vuitton Cup against Luna Rossa, American Magic led into the second weather gate in both races but lost them in the end. Those defeats were followed by two breezy races sailed at the red line of the AC75. They lost one race by 2 seconds and the other by 7. The one they lost by 2, Hutchinson says, was due to a momentary loss of control—in modern Cup parlance known as a “wobble.”

“That’s just time in the boat,” Hutchinson says. “When you’re going that fast, the trimmer, the helmsman and the flight controller need to be completely in sync. When you’re thrown into it, it’s hard to find that rhythm.”

Calabrese had sailed on Patriot for all of 10 days in the earlier phase of the ­campaign—and held the top speed, Hutchinson says. He was always full-tilt with the boat.

While there was much to lament watching the British and New Zealander sailors go at it, with that nagging feeling that “the wrong boat got to the final,” Hutchinson says that he’s uncertain what he and the team could have done differently.

Patriot certainly had its strengths as the most aerodynamic package of the AC75 fleet, the sailing team roster was rich, and three years of training and development went all according to plan.  

“I do truly believe that we would be in a different spot here today without Goodie’s accident,” he says. “And that’s not a discredit to Lucas. The guy did a flawless job at stepping into a really difficult situation, and he showed so much ­mental fortitude.”

With Patriot being a third-​generation AC75, Hutchinson says that the platform’s unique trait was an ability to crab to windward. How the boat is able to do so requires a deep explanation of the many forces at play on the AC75. Crabbing isn’t easy, he says, because it makes the boat “cranky,” but it’s ­powerful when done right.

Patriot was also noteworthy in the fleet for the use of recumbent cycles inside the hull. “I’m proud of the clever thinking and doing that,” he says. “The uninformed say that we were lacking power, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. Everybody has the same amount of power inside the boats, give or take. Power wasn’t the issue. The allocation of it may have been—the systems inside the boat, how many pumps we had in the boat versus what the others were using. That’s the bigger issue. We have to get better in the mechatronics and the control system, the mapping of each function—where it goes and how you do it.”

Science and technology are driving the evolution of Cup boats ever faster, with simulators, sensors, logic, HMIs, and especially AI making it ever more difficult for teams to develop and improve during the racing itself. They can improve with every race, but everyone else can too, and silver bullets no longer come overnight.

There also needs to be a shift away from on-water development to more hours in the simulator. That, Terry Hutchinson says, is where they made a mistake. Time in the sim now trumps time in the boat.

“It’s now bloody hard,” Hutchinson says about improving during the competition. Once the Cup racing gets going, there are not enough races, or time, to turn things around. “For the amount that’s being invested, we need to have more racing.”

For the next Cup, should American Magic challenge again, Hutchinson suggests a series of lead-up regattas—four or five—that would allow teams more racing. “That would allow all the teams the opportunity to develop, and all the racing leading up to that would be closer. We should all be racing together, including the defender. The America’s Cup will always have the relevance of the history of the regatta, but at a certain point, the regatta has to change if it wants to remain relevant. But it can’t just be another SailGP.”

While American Magic has a side seat at the table with the New Zealanders and INEOS Britannia as the Challenger of Record for the 38th Cup—when, where and how are TBD—all Hutchinson and the team can do is retreat to Pensacola, unpack the tools, and get on with the job ahead. But for Hutchinson, there’s still much more introspection to come, and figuring out a way to get faster without getting on the water.

“Our biggest area of improvement was going to come through time on the boat racing and racing development,” he says. That obviously didn’t happen in Barcelona with the early elimination. But there also needs to be a shift away from on-water development to more hours in the simulator. That, Hutchinson says, is where they made a mistake. Time in the sim now trumps time in the boat.

But there’s also the nagging question of his own leadership and his management of the talent. “We have to look at why we are not progressing further in the competition,” he says. “I can see the whys, but the whys don’t answer the question completely. In hindsight, knowing that we had a team dynamic to work on with Tom and Goody, should I have done something different and pushed further into the space of making it more of an open competition for the helmsmen and trying different combinations?”

As a point of reference, he cites INEOS Britannia replacing its starting port helmsman Giles Scott with Olympian and America’s Cup first-timer Dylan Fletcher in the weeks before the start of the regatta.

“The hardest calls are the ones that can unsettle the team the most and yet has probably the most room to gain,” Hutchinson says, pausing to measure his words carefully without saying outright that perhaps the chemistry wasn’t perfect. “We’re all results-driven people. I…I wanted to win the regatta because…to be…to…to finally take a deep breath. Now I have to keep holding my breath.”

The exhale might come in 2027 or ‘28, but for now, we sit tight.

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Giulia Conti, a four-time Olympian and winning skipper of the Puig Women’s America’s Cup, admits she was uncomfortable with the speed of the AC40—at first. “But then it becomes a habit,” she says. “Everything becomes automatic.”

What didn’t come automatically was efficient communication between Conti and her three teammates on the Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli women’s team. Each of them were confined to their respective seats on the foiling 40-footer, two per side, unable to see or know what was happening on the opposite side of the boat. “You have to develop such trust in a short amount of time,” she says.

And when things are happening fast, as they were on the impossibly short racecourses of Barcelona, there’s no time to talk things through, especially in their native tongue. “Italian can be so long when you speak,” Conti says. “On the first day people were talking so much, so our coach said, ‘OK, from tomorrow, you speak English on the boat.’ Because everything happens very quickly, and you have to be very clear what you communicate.”

This was especially true in the dizzying pre-starts alongside five other teams with a mix of experience and unpredictability. 

Starting was, “crazy sometimes,” Conti says. “I was the starboard driver, so I had no idea who was below us—and absolutely no idea how far or close they were. Afterwards, watching the videos, I was like, thank God I did not see that, because that was close.”

It was probably for the best that Conti was blind to the near misses and sometimes spastic boathandling of the more inexperienced teams on the racecourse. Unpredictability was the nature of this first-ever AC40 women’s regatta, in which the more practiced of the 12 teams ascended to the top of the leaderboard as the series progressed, culminating in a thrilling two-boat winner-take-all final race. Won, of course, by Conti and her teammates.

Separate vs Equal

Breaking into the America’s Cup circle isn’t easy, especially for females, so the Puig Women’s America’s Cup was a necessary means to at least crack open the door, says American Magic AC40 port helmswoman Francesca Clapcich. “It helped to get people there. If it doesn’t happen organically, somehow you have to push it.”

While half of the Puig women’s teams had no direct associations with a Cup challenger or defender (referred to as the “invited” teams), even those with Cup team affiliations experienced different levels of support and access. When Conti and her teammates first arrived at the Luna Rossa compound, the inclusion of women “felt like something imposed by the America’s Cup,” she says. But soon, most of the team “started to see…and they welcomed us as a family. People were very friendly and very keen to help. Never said no to anything.” 

Silvia Mas, who helmed the local invited squad, was at an even greater disadvantage from the get-go: Team BCN didn’t have access to an AC40. “We were doing it all with a simulator,” Mas says. “It was hard to find a coach who was really experienced in the AC40, because all those coaches were already in the big teams.”

Mas finally convinced Will Ryan, of Australia, an Olympic gold medalist and teammate from her TP52 sailing, to assist. “I was like, Will, please, we don’t have that much money, but please, can you help us. He did a very good job.”

Clapcich, born in Italy and married to US Olympian Sally Barkow, says that once the American Magic women’s sailing team was finalized over a long selection process, they trained on the simulator at the team base in Barcelona—between other commitments. Co-skipper Erika Reineke was immersed in her Olympic ILCA6 campaign, and Clapcich had her hands full with UpWind, a women’s Ocean Fifty trimaran program for the 2026 Route du Rhum. “It was hard to get the entire sailing team together for a long amount of time,” Clapcich says, “and time is the one thing that we all crave all the time.”

She adds, however, that it was important to be realistic about expectations. “I don’t think it would have been fair to have to quit everything else for an event that was just four days long.”

To sail an AC40, the American Magic women relocated to Badalona, Spain—where the invited Swedish Challenge team and INEOS Britannia’s Athena Pathway sailors were also training. “It was a really good way for us to be super-focused on what we were doing,” Clapcich says, “but at the same time you lose a little bit of the top fire that being with the big team brings.”

Working with American Magic’s Youth America’s Cup team did help, however. “Harry Melges and Severin Gramm were definitely the two [youth] sailors that had the most hours on the AC40,” Clapcich says. “When we started sailing, sometimes I was driving on port and Harry was driving on starboard. He was kind of like an onboard coach, and that was valuable for us.” She pauses to wish aloud that some of the women had been similarly included into the Cup team early on. “Even an hour of sailing here and there when they needed a spare driver or a spare trimmer would have increased our time on the water,” she says, “but that would probably not even have been possible, with all the other projects that we had.”

Over at Luna Rossa, the Women’s team’s sailors were not allowed to be distracted with Olympic campaigns. They operated as a single unit with the Youth team sailors, who also won their event. “We were super integrated with the America’s Cup team,” Conti says. “We were sharing the same facilities in Cagliari and in Barcelona; training out of the base, and interacting every day with everybody. Amongst all the teams, probably us and the French were the ones that most interacted with the big team.” 

Looking at the results, though, that was not their sole source of success. “We were super integrated,” Conti repeats, “and the British were completely independent—and we were the two best teams.”

Skills Of A Younger Generation

As the Cup-aligned teams trained on their AC40s, the independent teams had to scrounge for time on the water. Mas says they rented a boat to supplement the four official training days, but technical glitches and weather inconsistencies meant they’d only logged a few hours of sailing before the racing went live. 

All three skippers say the simulator was excellent preparation, though they have different opinions about how directly it translated—which may be partly related to their ages. At 39, Conti is more than a decade older than her Luna Rossa teammates; she compares even the actual sailing to playing a video game. “You’re just pressing buttons and moving joysticks and driving wheels. Everything happens so quickly. And obviously, a young brain processes things differently than the older one. It took me a little longer than the young girls to get it for sure.”

Clapcich, 36, says the simulator is surprisingly realistic—but she missed the sensory input. “On the boat,” she says. “You have the wheel in your hand and you can feel the balance of the boat so much better.”

While the simulator gave her a full understanding of the platform, the trick was “trying to get the hours on the water to transfer that knowledge.” And, on or off the water, “the teams that were able to spend a lot of time together will also have more chemistry, and that definitely makes the entire team more successful.”

The 28-year-old Mas says the simulator is “really helpful in the way of mechanism in the brain: what is happening if you do this or you do that. But the takeoffs are completely different in real life, and if there is a strong wind it’s not that accurate. And you don’t have the feeling of the heel, which is something super important in these foiling boats. But it was a very big tool for us—well, the only tool we had, of course.”

To simulate racing situations, the Spanish team’s coaches layered on artificial stress. “In the simulator, you are tranquil, chill; life just happens,” Mas says. “So, they were like, there’s a boat right here and things are going on super-fast! They were doing to us things that were exploding our heads…because they wanted to simulate all the drama in real sailing. It was a mess, but I have to say that thanks to that, when we went on the real boat the team was much better prepared.”

Monster Operations

Shortly before the regatta, all the AC40s used by teams for training and development for the AC75s were transferred to the America’s Cup organization and returned to their one-design state. “They organized a full technical team to take care of six boats,” Clapcich says. “It was quite a monster project for them.” 

Sailors—and viewers of the race broadcast—were frustrated by random breakdowns, but Mas says the time her team spent digging for solutions actually made them stronger. “We knew we didn’t spend time on the boat, so we were like, OK, even though everyone has their responsibilities everyone has to also look after the other one. Normally there is always a specialist to tell you: if this happens, you do this. But this time, we were actually the ones on the laptop. You can imagine how many hours…Why this? I don’t understand. But you look and look and take in as much information as possible. And then on the water, we could analyze faster because we were really working on that, learning minute by minute. Trying to really understand the boat; I think this is what really made the difference.”

Conti says the boats themselves are not difficult to sail, but rather, “the hard part is all the operations—going alongside the chase boat, towing, and all these little things where you risk the worst damage. Clapcich’s opinion of the AC40 is that it is “quite a complicated boat…you cannot just turn the wheel.”

Mas identifies what is, perhaps, the AC40’s best attribute: “These boats are so technical; we don’t really need to be that strong.”

And this point, of course, translates to the AC75s that will be used for the next Cup cycle. If, as some pundits predict, the cylors will be replaced by batteries, then brute strength and power should no longer be a requirement.

The door is then blown wide open for the now experienced sailors of the Puig Women’s America’s Cup. In the meantime, all three skippers are eager to do more AC40 sailing—and as of this writing, they are still awaiting word about whether that will be possible. “It would be great to have a series, because we enjoy racing against each other,” Conti says, before adding that there’s now a group of women with enough experience to “fight for the hot seats in the AC 75s.” Luna Rossa has ordered a second AC40.

Conti’s best memory is crossing the finish line as the Puig regatta’s champion, but she says the scores are not the whole story. Before the first day of racing, “I told the girls that however this event would go, I’d already won because I’d found them. We created such a tight group, not only in a sportsman way, but also from a human point of view. They became like my family. Very good friends, very good people, very good sailors. We were actually doing stuff together outside the boat every day. 

“Achievements are good,” she adds. “And they define your career. But what you really take with you is the people and the moments that you live. I had the best year of my life.”

Clapcich says that American Magic management pursued feedback and the women were happy to give it. “We shared what we did well, what we didn’t do well, and what can get some improvement. I think they are open about trying to make improvements for the future. [But] the America’s Cup is a hard one, because one team wins and they make their own rules and it’s not really controlled by anything above them.”

Mas has advice for future America’s Cup teams: “The men should be scared. We can really do it. I hope we can see mixed crew in the future—or even a full women’s crew. Why not? I really believe in that, and I think we are really getting there.”

When and if there is a there it may well be uncomfortable at first, but then, just like Conti says about high speeds, it will quickly become automatic.

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For the 1983 America’s Cup, our plan was to do two new boats and to trial them against each other. We already had two decent boats, Freedom and Enterprise, for comparison. We suspected that the Australians would be competitive and planning to do something special following their clever bendy rig in 1980. Don’t forget that the Americans had won forever, and the foreigners were predisposed to losing—which might not be fair, but I think it was realistic.

We thought that if we designed and built two new boats that we would have the landscape pretty well covered. We decided to have Johan Valentijn design one boat and Olin Stephens and his Sparkman & Stephens office design the other. The Valentijn boat, ironically, would not have been able to race in the Cup because it was too short on the waterline and didn’t fit the 12-Metre Rule.

For the S&S boat, Olin Stephens was getting older, so some others on the S&S team were probably involved, such as Bill Langan and the team behind him. They designed a fairly large boat. Normally, a large boat would be fighting for enough sail area, but they got it by pushing the girth profile pretty hard to gain back some rating under the 12-Metre Rule. It pushed the rule on girth hard. It was large, and the reason it did not have a smaller sail area was because the girths were not penalized. It was V-shaped and not wine-bottle-shaped. You would think with that configuration it would be slow, but it needed to be that way under the rule to get a large boat with a larger sail area.

We tested it against Freedom and Enterprise and realized that the design did not work well. We decided that we needed to either build another boat or rely on Freedom to be a good boat. We decided to have another boat designed and built, and based on some of the innovation that Valentijn had shown with his design of Magic, we let him do it. He designed Liberty, but it was not a great boat. 

The first day, we sailed Freedom against Liberty—mind you, I hate to go swimming, but I said I would go swimming because there must be something stuck on Liberty to be this slow against Freedom. So that did not bode well for our future.

We decided that we would also let Valentijn make changes to Freedom because she was sticky in the light air, and we thought that would improve with more sail area. We decided that we would let him make Freedom a little shorter so that we could add sail area. However, Freedom had the lowest freeboard of any 12-Metre, and that had been grandfathered in because the rule on freeboard was changed in 1983.

Freedom had a low ­freeboard and was quite wet, but it was the low freeboard that gave her better aerodynamic and hydrodynamic qualities. Valentijn did not interpret or misread the rule, so in making the boat shorter to gain sail area, we lost the grandfathering of the freeboard. We ended up with a shorter boat and without any additional sail area. It made Freedom worse in light air without added sail area, and worse in stronger conditions because it was shorter and it rated the same. So Valentijn designed Magic, which could not race for the Cup because its rating was too short; he designed Liberty, which was not a special boat; and he negatively impacted Freedom, which was our best boat after all of this. We ended up having to race Liberty.

In the meantime, the Australians had built two boats: One was Challenge 12 and the other Australia II. They were identical except one had a ­regular keel and one had a winged keel. The winged keel ended up being the better boat. It was the shortest boat you could design and still race, which, if I remember right, was 42½ feet on the waterline.

The problem with a small boat is that it isn’t very good in windier conditions. They figured out how to make it better by turning the keel upside down. They attached the short part of the keel to the hull and had the longer part at the bottom of the keel. That made a short boat with a lot of sail area very stable in the breeze. The tank testing was done in Holland and the idea came out of Holland, which made it illegal, but that’s another story.

The problem with the long keel at the bottom was that it made excess tip vortices—or, in layman’s terms, there was too much drag. They figured that if you added winglets to the keel, it would reduce the vortices. They started thinking that if you were going to add winglets with that drag, you might as well make them out of lead, which would give even more stability. And, if you were heeled over, one of the wings would be more vertical and add lift. So, for Australia, it was all a gain—aside from some additional drag downwind—but the boat was short and had plenty of sail area, so it was not that bad. 

The fact that we were up 3-1 after four races was a ­miracle. But it was a combination of them having some bad luck and not sailing well at the beginning and us having some good fortune. Once they figured out that they were fast, they became formidable. They got stronger and stronger, and John Bertrand got less nervous; they had a good crew and a good boat.

We broke down in the fifth race when the jumpers blew off the mast, which was too bad because those were our best conditions. They had good fortune in the sixth race and were faster. In the seventh race, we were kicking their butts—but the wind dropped quite a bit, and they got stronger and stronger and passed us.

Would I have done anything differently? Maybe knowing what I know now, but what I knew back then, probably not. They were a good boat.

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On the eve of the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup Match, the America’s Cup Media Center on the ground floor of Barcelona’s World Trade Center is relatively empty. Both challenger and defender alike are hunkered down and most of the accredited media are off exploring cultural gems of the city or taking a breather before the Cup rush.

The only action is the Puig Women’s America’s Cup qualifying races, and while I sit awaiting the delayed start I get a text message from Sabina Mollart-Rogerson, the international media liaison for the French Orient Express Racing Team. They’re taking guests sailing on its AC75 and there are two spots for journalists. Do I want to go?

She does not need to ask twice. “Must be present to win,” I mutter to myself.

With my laptop briskly shoved into my backpack, I hustle to meet Mollart-Rogerson waiting in a team courtesy car, hastily board a RIB at the base and then transfer to a chase boat sitting along the AC75. Alexander Smith, of Reuters, is getting his safety briefing from the team’s paramedic—a quick tutorial on how to use the PFD’s spare air system and the hand signals should the boat capsize and we end up in the drink.

Smith is first to get into this rare AC75 joyride and as we follow alongside I meet Enzo Balanger, the mustached young Frenchman who skippered the team’s AC40 in the UniCredit Youth America’s Cup. Today will be his first time onboard the AC75 and his first shot at driving the big beast of a foiler. He’s had a few runs in the simulator, but he tells me he’s eager for the real thing as he observes the boat intently from his seat inside the RIB.

After 20 minutes or so, the boat comes to a slow stop and parks head-to-wind. Smith gingerly steps off the foredeck and onto the RIB with the expected ear-to-ear grin. I take his helmet, slide it on, adjust it and clip the chin strap. It’s a heavy, bobble-head like feel. With my PFD zipped and snugged, I move to the front of the RIB and before I board I’m warned several times about the slipperiness of the foredeck, and not to step on the deck area above the jib track–it will break.

With bare feet on the polished white deck it is indeed slippery, but I find awkward footing on the non-skid decals and crawl crab-like toward the mast and into the port-side opening behind the helmsman’s cockpit. The cycling apparatus that once served to power the boat through the Louis Vuitton Cup races has been removed. What remains is a bike saddle on a post, foot pads and forearm handlebars with grip tape worn thin and shredded by cyclors giving their all. A puddle of water sloshes around in the bilge and in front of me is a small LCD screen and a laminated list with checkboxes and instructions in French that I cannot decipher. I can only assume it’s the cyclor’s pre-flight check list.

To be honest, I was hoping to push some pedals to see how hard it could really be, but I’m OK with the cruise.

Behind me is one of the team’s cyclors, and helming in the opposite side of the boat is starting helmsman Quentin Delapierre. Balanger slides into the cockpit in front of me and scans the many displays in front of him, presumably doing his pre-flight checks and orientating himself. He slides his goggles down over his eyes and adjusts his facemask as the boat bears away and starts sailing on port tack.

All I can hear over the headset built into my helmet is the chatter among the cyclors. I’m on a closed loop between them, and even if I could listen to Delapierre coaxing Balanger, I would have no idea what was being said. I don’t do French, so I’m well and truly along the ride.

As the boat slowly accelerates, both foils in the water, a rush of wind across the deck is immediate. Hydraulic pumps inside the boat groan and I can hear and feel the whir of the cyclors pushing oil throughout the boat. The jib clew slides out to the outboard end of the recessed foredeck track, the tack rises and the foot deepens and rounds.

A small green box on the LCD display in front of me reads 12.3 knots as the boat heels briefly to weather and then comes level as the boat lifts free of the surface. The jib clew quickly comes inboard, the leech hardens, and what was once a deep-cambered sail is now board flat. I peek over the rail and stare with wonder at the foil wing gliding just below the surface, its pointed upward-curved outer tip zippering the water.

From my vantage point, I can easily see approaching puffs through the jib slot, and find myself counting them down in my head and watching how the boat and the sails react. The jib car is constantly moving inboard and outboard, inches a time. Behind me, the traveler is hyperactive.

In a blink we’re doing 28 knots in 9 knots of wind before Delapierre drops the windward foil and starts the turn through our first foiling tack. I watch Balanger scan his displays through the turn before looking forward over the bow and at the straight horizon. I can see video screens showing camera views of both foils, but there are other displays in front of him with a jumble of numbers.

Once settled on the new tack the windward foil rises free of the water and the speed loss through the tack is barely noticeable. With Balanger now on the helm the boat lumbers and bounces like a large prop-plane through turbulence. At full tilt, there’s just wind noise through my helmet, the hum turning cranks and pumps pushing oil. Telltales along the bottom of the jib and mainsail stream straight back as if glued to the sails.

Balanger seems plenty smooth on his first long port run, the windward board’s tip only dipping occasionally. The display in my cockpit is blinking with colors, numbers I don’t understand, power data from cyclors, and percentages for the jib sheet and the mainsail traveler as the true-wind angle bounces between 40 and 50-something degrees.

After a few minutes of straight-line sailing at 29 knots it all starts to feel pretty relaxed, and it’s only when we bear away to somewhere past 100 degrees true that the rush of the AC75 becomes real. Suddenly, it’s 37 knots, a cheeks-flapping, head-swaying sort of pace, a sense of floating on air.

We glide through a few more jibes and speed runs before turning into the wind and coming to a slow stop. The ride is over and with it, the same sort of let down that comes after an epic roller coaster ride. That feeling that you want to jump right back into the cue, no matter how long it is, for another go. According to my Garmin watch we’ve covered 6.87 miles in 20m:38s, at an average speed of 20 knots. Somehow, I’ve burned 127 calories just sitting on my saddle, a mere fraction of the cyclors who were doing all the heavy cranking.

Mine is the last ride of the day and after a fast and short tow back to the base, I get 5 minutes of one-on-one with Balanger before he’s whisked off to the debrief. While it seems to me his turns were just fine for an AC75 first-timer—no splashdowns or touches—he confesses that it was far from good, but it’s all part of getting up to speed and hopefully into a starting role when the French challenger returns to the next Cup.

“During my first tack, the traveler was a bit stuck in the middle,” he says with a chuckle. “I tried to turn the wheel but the boat didn’t turn.”

He was out of sync with the trimmers, but the next one was better: “When I didn’t get my first tack well, I just watched how Quentin did the next one, and then I just did the same. There is a lot of precision and coordination, and it is not easy.”

Recalling this first few minutes on the helm of the AC75 Balanger says that while it would have been tempting to focus on the array of displays in front of him, he instead drew upon his instincts gleaned from his high-level Moth sailing.

“I wasn’t too focused on the data,” he says, “just the heel and the feel of the boat and the wind. Of course, I was nervous but everyone was supporting me, the cyclors telling me to push a bit more, saying, ‘we have some power for you.’”

Although I could not hear Delapierre mentoring from the opposite cockpit, Balanger says, he wasn’t telling him whether he was doing well or not. “He was just telling me that it was my first time and that everyone wants to perform. He was giving me a lot of advice and told me it was good—but only at the end.”

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