Happy Monday everyone...
In today's newsletter:
- Argo Challenge: A 20-year quest to bring disabled sailors into the America’s Cup
- Breaking the chains: How the America’s Cup finally agreed to modernise
- Bulwarks and Bulldust Vodcast: Matt Allen
- Slow going in the 2025 Rolex Middle Sea Race
- Votes for the Pantaenius Yacht Racing Image Award 2025 are open
- Quiz Question...
Argo Challenge: A 20-year quest to bring disabled sailors into the America’s Cup
Antonio Spinelli’s revived Argo Challenge is bidding to field international teams of disabled sailors in the Youth and Women’s America’s Cup at AC38, with hopes of racing in the AC40 prelims too. Backed by Lars Grael and Heiko Kroger, the project seeks funding and approval to make history.
Italian Antonio Spinelli is the driving force behind the Argo Challenge, a bold and ambitious campaign to assemble an international squad of disabled sailors to participate in both the Youth and Women’s America’s Cup competitions during AC38, with a stretch goal of competing in next year’s three scheduled AC40 preliminary regattas against the full America’s Cup teams.
Spinelli – a past ski instructor who works as a volunteer in an organisation that encourages people with disabilities to get involved in sport – led the first iteration of the Argo Challenge back in 2006 when he and Brazilian double Olympic bronze medallist Lars Grael put together a crew of able-bodied and disabled sailors with the goal of competing in the America’s Cup.
Although that campaign did not ultimately come to fruition – in some part because of the hiatus caused by the Oracle Team USA v Alinghi lawsuit – the team acquitted themselves well, and notably performed credibly in the Voiles de St Tropez and the Maxi World Championship in Sardinia.
Now, almost 20 years on, Spinelli is drumming up support for a second tilt at involving disabled sailors in the America’s Cup. The revival of his dream has come about largely because of the introduction of the AC40 foiling monohull, which is raced by a crew of four sailors who all remain seated during racing and control the boat using steering wheels and push button controls.
After watching the AC40s racing in the Youth and Women’s America’s Cup events during the 37th America’s Cup in Barcelona, Spain last year, Spinelli saw the potential for crews of disabled sailors to compete on a level playing field.
“The main idea is to participate in the Youth America’s Cup and the Women’s America’s Cup, and – if the teams agree – to participate in the preliminary events in the AC40...
Breaking the chains: How the America’s Cup finally agreed to modernise
With the new America's Cup Partnership now signed and sealed this handy reminder on how it all came about from Magnus Wheatley for Boat International makes interesting reading.
After months of ructions and wrangling, Defender and Challenger have finally agreed to modernise the America’s Cup. Magnus Wheatley, America’s Cup author and historian, reports on the painful lead-up to a seismic decision that could finally liberate the event from its stifling Deed of Gift constrictions...
Within seconds of Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) crossing the finish line in Barcelona in October, dispatching INEOS Britannia 7-2 in the 37th America’s Cup Match, Royal Yacht Squadron Commodore-elect Bertie Bicket was in an office shoreside with Gillian Williams, then Commodore of the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron.
Away from the cameras and the glory, Bicket was doing something just as momentous as the crews who crossed the finish line, only rather more quietly: signing the official letter and Memorandum of Understanding to become the Challenger of Record for the 38th America’s Cup.
As well as chief competitors for the next event, this also made the New Zealand and British teams collaborators on its rules. It was largely their failure to reach mutual consent on those rules – the Protocol – for so long that led to woes within Cup circles, ranging from disappearing financial backers to public disputes, and even star sailors jumping ship. But the road was paved with good intentions.
Modernising minds
Since midway through the 37th regatta, teams for the 38th America’s Cup, slated for Naples in July 2027, had been angling to reform the competition. Throughout the Cup in Barcelona, Defender ETNZ recognised issues around sustainable funding and proposed a raft of changes during lengthy discussions with the Challenger of Record, the Royal Yacht Squadron, bringing in other syndicate heads to try and find a way forward.
The goal was to make commercial negotiations more meaningful for sponsors, benefactors and suppliers, as well as informing venue selection, to bring the America’s Cup more in line with the modern sporting world.
“In essence, the ultimate goal was to create longer-term value in the teams that can become franchisable models,” says Grant Dalton, CEO of ETNZ, about the partnership. “If you look at all the major sports in the world, every single one operates on this basis. It’s only the America’s Cup that sits outside of that, and in order to create value, the AC Partnership is the key.”
This new AC Partnership arrangement would allow teams to form an all-powerful committee with equal voting rights to run future events. That would generate stability and predictability (the rules wouldn’t change every time unless unanimously agreed) and therefore encourage revenue from event fees, TV rights and sponsorship arrangements.
The idea was a set-up that was equitable, profitable and attractive for all involved. It would need to be laid out within the Protocol agreed by Challenger and Defender and then confirmed potentially in due course via an amendment to the Deed of Gift, the overall guiding document of the Cup.
Grand plans fracture
But consensus on the details proved difficult to find – delaying publication of the Protocol that the AC Partnership would sit within. Relations began to break down behind the scenes, with three Challengers – Athena Racing, Alinghi and American Magic – dividing into a separate camp, and contesting the structure and make-up of the Partnership.
Things came to a head when Dalton, also CEO of the America’s Cup Event, chose Naples as the venue. The lead-up to the Naples announcement, during which Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni hosted a lavish reception in Rome, followed by ministerial-level largesse at another reception in Naples, had been tense. Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the petro-chemicals tycoon, had just pulled his support from the Challenger of Record Athena Racing, leaving the British in a scramble to raise funds to honour their challenge.
With this as a backdrop, Athena aligned most publicly with the Swiss Alinghi syndicate and the New York Yacht Club’s American Magic team via a series of statements to decry an “ongoing lack of transparency” and its impact on negotiating a fair sporting Protocol.
“Athena Racing has been negotiating in good faith for the past seven months and still has serious concerns regarding several key clauses proposed within the Protocol, which is far from being ‘final’ as the Defender suggests,” the team statement read.
Athena contended that a host agreement, which commits all challengers to the logistics and costs of setting up a base and moving a huge team to a new venue, typically follows an agreement on the Protocol. With no such agreement in place, ETNZ was jumping the gun by announcing Naples as the next venue...
Bulwarks and Bulldust Podcast: Matt Allen
Prolific Australian yacht racer and vice chair of World Sailing's Oceanic and Offshore Committee is the guest on the latest episode of the excellent Bulwarks and Bulldust sailing vodcast.
Votes for the Pantaenius Yacht Racing Image Award 2025 are open
120 yacht racing photographers representing 26 nations have submitted an image for this year’s photo contest dedicated to the sport of sailing. The top 20 images will be exhibited at Metstrade Amsterdam, and the prize giving will take place on November 21 during the Yacht Racing Forum.
What is the best yacht racing image of the year? Public votes are now open to determine the winner of the Pantaenius Yacht Racing Image "Public Award".
No less than 120 professional photographers representing 26 nations submitted their best photo for the 2025 edition of the Pantaenius Yacht Racing Image Award.
The seven members of the international jury have selected the 80 best images which are now online. Their votes will also define the overall winner of the Yacht Racing Image Award.
The top 20 images will be exhibited at the world's largest maritime industry trade fair, Metstrade Amsterdam, on November 18 - 20. The awards ceremony will take place on November 21 at the Yacht Racing Forum, the leading annual conference for the business of sailing and yacht racing.
Yacht racing photographers from all over the world are cordially invited to the event (registration compulsory on www.yachtracingforum.com).
Two prizes will be awarded to the winners: the Pantaenius Yacht Racing Image Award (main prize), selected by the international jury, and the Public Award, based on the number of public votes online.
Public voting is open from today until November 14.
Slow going in the 2025 Rolex Middle Sea Race
Remon Vos' Reichel/Pugh-designed Black Jack 100 looks on track for line honours in the 2025 edition of the Rolex Middle Sea Race which started on Sunday with a fleet of 117 boats.
At 1600 CET today Black Jack had completed five of the seven stages of the 606-nautical mile course that starts and finishes in Malta and takes the fleet on a lap of the Italian island of Sicily. The Mills 72 Balthasar, skippered by Louis Balcaen, was in second on the water, a little under 50 nm behind. Progress has been slow across the fleet with winds today under 10 knots around the course.
Quiz Question...
Which iconic offshore race traditionally starts on Boxing Day?
A) Rolex Middle Sea Race
B) Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race
C) Transat Jacques Vabre
D) Fastnet Race
E) Vendée Globe
Answer in the next newsletter...
Friday's answer: The 470 dinghy was introduced to the Olympics in 1976 at the Montreal Games. Initially, it was an 'open' class, but it was later split into separate men's and women's events starting in the 1988 Seoul Games, before becoming a mixed-gender fleet for the Paris 2024 Olympics and onwards.
