Cup Spy: Fans can but watch the Brit's pillow fight as Cup wallows
by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World NZ 7 Feb 13:04 GMT
8 February 2025
Fans on the beach in Barcelona - Day 1 of AC37 - Barcelona - 16 October 2024 © Ivo Rovira / America's Cup
America's Cup fans got well used to the sight of AC75s falling off their foils in the lighter moments of Barcelona
They were cringe-worthy moments, when many fans hoped their boat would not be down forever, and would pop back up in short order and be sailing at race pace.
Sometimes it happened. Often it didn't.
That's about how it feels now for Cup fans, but with more downside than up, after the America's Cup Teams' Meeting, held last Friday week in London, broke up without a communique or photo.
In the intervening week, the Cup has failed to pop onto its foils. Nothing was said.
The silence is surprising, given ETNZ CEO Grant Dalton's comments after the 2024 Cup in Barcelona that “We can see regattas starting as early as January next year."
“We would increase the frequency of regattas – all the teams are calling out for more regattas,” he said.
The Cup was stalled anyway until Oct 20, 2025 following the no-sail edict issued by Challenger of Record and Defender (COR/D) on November 8, 2024 - which stopped all on the water development.
Apparently there is a beauty contest going on with the UK clubs to partner INEOS Britannia for the next Cup. The assumption is that Sir Jim Ratcliffe will go again.
The question is who owns all the gear - particularly the AC75, AC40s chase boats and the 2024 gear for the AC75 - foils, rudders, sails etc. Along with the base in Barcelona - if Ratcliffe can get his hands on that - which is where the legal battle will be - over the hard assets - then he goes into the next Cup with a lot of momentum.
Sir Ben Ainslie has made a big play over the soft assets (data and intellectual property) but he will struggle to extract those from the computer systems in the INEOS backed F1 facility Brackley.
Ainslie's team, Athena Racing will not get the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team's design apps - so they don't get a turnkey performance and design system. They will have to build it from the ground up, or piggyback onto another F1 team. Of course, anything that Athena Racing holds off the Brackley site is re-usable and any missing bits can usually be re-engineered - if there is time available.
Maybe Athena Racing could get a partnership with a team like Artemis Technologies - but that won't be the same, and they need to benchmark the results in a live environment, if they are to have any confidence going forward.
The risk for RYS is that they get tied up with a team that is going nowhere. If that happened, they would remain as a team-less Challenger of Record, unless they withdrew in which case the COR would go to the next Club that lodged a Notice of Challenge.
If INEOS Britannia has the hard assets from the 2024 Cup, then Athena Racing and RYS are starting from Ground Zero. But that is a British problem.
In their Notice of Challenge, accepted by Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, the Royal Yacht Squadron specified a date sometime in 2025 for the next Cup (see video below) - one that was greater than 10 months from the date of the conclusion of the Barcelona regatta on October 20, but still in the 2025 calendar year.
That puts the date some time between August 20, and December 31 of this year.
The expectation of RYS was that those dates would be renegotiated under Mutual Consent.
Regardless of what is, or is not happening in UK pillowfight, the other Cup teams can still proceed and start test sailing in AC75s, AC40s or LEQ12s (40ft test boats) in late October, where ever they like.
RYS risks being left in the other teams' wake. The other Challengers (as does the Defender), need to regain their momentum from 2024, even with skeleton teams which can be expanded later and to keep their sailing team sharp on the SailGP circuit.
There's nothing in a delay for the Defender - they want to go sailing, so they have something to offer sponsors. In fact they originally talked about a Defence in 2026 - which was deemed too fast for potential new teams.
If COR/D try and extend the 12 month moratorium on sailing, set on November 8, 2024, they risk being taken into the New York Supreme Court.
The Defender has to Defend, and while they can do a deal on dates under Mutual Consent, they have to announce when their Defence will take place, so that other clubs who wish to challenge for the trophy know how they potentially stand in the queue for the 39th Match.
Acceptance of a Challenge marks the beginning of the next Match, and is not a blocking maneuver until the Challenger gets their house in order.
Meanwhile the Cup's delay is SailGP's gain - having attracted most of the America's Cup rockstars, and with seven Olympic Gold medalists helming. Two of the naming rights sponsors - Emirates and Red Bull - have naming rights on two SailGP teams.
Not that SailGP is perfect, far from it, but currently it's the only game in town.