The America’s Cup looks set for a bright new future after the signing this week of a remarkable new Protocol document which has revolutionised sailing’s oldest and most prestigious competition.
There will of course be the naysayers and gloom merchants who will delight in picking holes in the America’s Cup’s new set of rules – and I’m sure there is plenty in the 70-page downloadable PDF for them to focus on and whinge about.
From my perspective, though, the positives of this new deal far outweigh the negatives and that is where I am going to choose to focus.
So what are the elements that I really like from the new AC38 Protocol?
Well, first up and most important is the end to the boom and bust era of America’s Cup cycles that saw sharp spikes of intense interest in the event while the racing was going on, but followed by desert dustbowls of inactivity and disinterest in the often prolonged periods in between editions.
With the best will in the world, you cannot expect to hold the attention of a mainstream sports fan for a sailing event – no matter how high-adrenaline and exciting it might be while it’s going on – over two or three years of downtime.
In the America’s Cup’s brave new format the 174-year-old regatta moves to a two-year cycle, with – importantly – a continuous management organisation that can ensure there are no deserts of attention-killing downtime in between.
One beneficial knock-on effect of this is that teams no longer have to go into hibernation in between events. No need to scale the headcount back to a skeleton staff when you are rolling straight into another America’s Cup Challenge. That means job security for the hundreds of boat builders, sailmakers, designers, hydraulic engineers, and many, many other roles that make up an America’s Cup syndicate. It also has the potential to make the elite end of the sport of sailing a viable career path for smart young people – in the same way that Formula 1 does.
The sailing public is perhaps the biggest beneficiary of this new era. As well as being able to enjoy a continuous feed of America’s Cup news, we no longer will have to struggle through painful explanations to non-sailing friends about why our sport’s premier event only takes place every three years. No more cringing inwardly when we have to admit that we have no idea when or where the next edition will take place – despite the fact that the last one finished six months ago.
The mainstream journalists reviewing the new Protocol seems to have zoned in heavily on the fact that the new guest seat on the the AC75s could be used to put social media influencers in the thick of the action aboard a 50-knot foiling yacht dogfighting around an America’s Cup racecourse.
For me, it’s not the most important element of the new Protocol, but it is a powerful example of how the America’s Cup needs to play to its strengths.
Baseball can invite celebrities, politicians, and world leaders to throw the first pitch before a game, in soccer they might get invited to toss the coin in the centre circle, and basketball sometimes allows a celeb to initiate the tip-off – but all of these are purely ceremonial and doesn’t count for anything.
The America’s Cup now has something no other sport can offer up. If you want something to tell your grandkids about then do the safety training, strap on your body armour, helmet, and grab your spare air bottle and marvel as around you an AC75 crew battles a fierce rival for points throughout a 20-minute race.
So I’m all for it. Bring on the influencers, the sponsors and their guests, the politicians, the celebrities and movie stars, the talk show hosts, the pop stars, the journalists (including…ahem…us sailing specialists) and whoever else can help the new America’s Cup make its mark in today's ultra competitive attention economy.
I am happy to see the mandated inclusion of at least one female sailor on the AC75s. Those words ‘at least one’ are important to note. One is a minimum and not a quota. How cool would it be to see two or three women sailors earn their positions in an America’s Cup team. With the introduction of batteries to power the boats now, any talk of physical limitations is moot.
If what is now required is innate sailing talent, razor-sharp reactions, and fast fingers on the control buttons, then it’s hard to see why the likes of British Olympic gold medallist kite surfer Ellie Aldridge – who is used to racing her board 40 miles per hour, controlling its flight control with tiny movements of her toes, while managing tactics, strategy, and board-on-board situations on her own – could not quickly reach the required standard to take on the flight control of an AC75.
The same goes for the driving and trimming roles too. Women sailors are a brand new untapped vein of talent for the America’s Cup teams. The syndicates that take a long-term view and invest in discovering and developing female talent could well unearth a treasure trove of talent and competitive advantage. We have seen in Formula 1 how talented youngsters with the right coaching can step into an F1 car and be competitive. There’s no reason why the same cannot apply with female sailors in the America’s Cup.
A quick response to those who say this is all tokenism and that female sailors should earn their right to be on board the hard way. Maybe it is. But I was there when the Volvo Ocean Race mandated two female sailors for the 2017-18 edition of the around-the-world race.
People called it tokenism then too, but allocating those spots to talented female sailors gave them the chance to rack up thousands of miles of open offshore racing and to learn from the very best open ocean racers on the planet. Many have gone on further success on the back of that experience and the same will be true with the America’s Cup.
As a final point on this topic, the introduction of female sailors to the America’s Cup makes sailing one of the very few sports with mixed gender teams. Surely that is something we should be proud of, rather than something to disparage?
Other reasons to celebrate the new AC38 Protocol…
The introduction of fleet racing to the Challenger Selection Series. How cool will it be to see six AC75s on the same racecourse, although I hope they make the race areas a bit bigger to compensate for the triple-sized fleet.
Up to three AC40 preliminary events in 2026. The racing at the AC40 events in AC37 was superb and I love the fact that the teams can field a second boat crewed by members of their Women’s and Youth AC teams. That’s such a smart move. (I was delighted, of course, by the return of the Women’s and Youth America’s Cups, but to be honest bringing back the most popular part of AC37 was a bit of a no-brainer after all.) There’s no word yet on where these three events will take place, but if they are in the UK, France, and New Zealand I confidently predict bumper crowds for all of them.
The final prelim event, however, will take place in 2027 in Naples, Italy as a precursor to the start of AC38, and will be raced in AC75s. What a perfect appetiser to get everyone salivating for the main course.
There’s also a promise of more racing time for all the teams. That’s good for the sailors, the sponsors, and the sailing public. After several years of non-stop hard work from all the teams prior to AC37, it was heartbreaking to watch some make such early departures.
So there is, without a doubt, a great deal to applaud and be happy about in the new AC38 Protocol. But there are a few question marks too.
One question is over the constant evolution of the boats used in the America’s Cup going forward. AC38 will be the third cycle for the AC75 foiling monohulls that were introduced by Emirates Team New Zealand. Many people love them, but lots bemoan the push button sailing/video game aspects of the racing.
Under the old rules if someone won the Cup they would have the option to change the class, providing the at least theoretical chance of a return to conventional sailboats. With the introduction of a framework agreement between all the competing teams in the form of the America’s Cup Partnership (ACP) body, which will be responsible for the organisation of the AC going forward, that opportunity appears to have disappeared. Now, it seems it would require consensus from the ACP board members (representatives of all the teams) to make such a change. Is that something that detracts just a bit from the unique magic of the America’s Cup story?
Likewise the choice of venue also appears to have been taken away from any America’s Cup winner, with that responsibility also down to the ACP. Again, a little lost magic, perhaps? But the upside is that venues can be locked in well in advance, with multi-cycle deals being done with host cities – something that can only make the America’s Cup infinitely more investable for teams and sponsors than it could ever have been under the old rules.
So the future looks bright for our sport’s lighthouse event. Fingers crossed that the negotiations around the formation of the ACP go as smoothly as is possible in these sorts of matters. Entries open next Monday for challenges for the 38th America’s Cup. Fingers crossed for six teams – and then, hopefully, we will be off to the races.
