New Zealand’s Thrilling Win Gets the America’s Cup Off to a Rip-Roaring Start

The America’s Cup, after years of talking and months of practicing, is officially on.

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Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ), the defenders of the last America’s Cup , claimed victory yesterday in the opening round robin of the Louis Vuitton Preliminary Regatta, with Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli claiming second place in Barcelona. The results are a repeat of the 2021 Cup in New Zealand, when New Zealand claimed victory over the Italians.

The match race between the two teams in yesterday’s finals was arguably the best during the four-day series, showing the prowess of both the teams and their boats, with the Kiwis coming out on top in a race that could’ve gone either way. New Zealand celebrated by aiming large magnums of Champagne at each other.

But this four-day round-robin, only good for bragging rights, is just the start of the three-month series of yacht-racing. The Louis Vuitton Cup starts Thursday and runs through October 5, when the overall winner faces New Zealand in the 10-day America’s Cup Match, ending on October 21.

If it sounds like a long season, it is. But the America’s Cup has slowly evolved from an often boring, elitist “sport” held offshore in very slow boats, into something of a tech spectacle with fast, foiling, 75-foot monohulls, called AC75s, that all have the same specs, with some modifications allowed. But not much. The idea is to make the event a more level playing field, technically and financially. Previous America’s Cups have favored the wealthiest teams that could afford technical modifications often executed in days to give an edge over competitors.

“New Zealand and Italy look really strong this year, with both strong boats and teams,” Dave Reed, editor-in-chief of Sailing World, tells Robb Report. “But the American team is also a contender. They have a really fast boat and some of the best sailors in the event.”

ETNZ chose Barcelona as the race venue because it would draw thousands of Europeans and North Americans to watch the races in person. Its sponsors range from tony brands such as Prada and Louis Vuitton (which is sponsoring all events this year) to the world’s most famous professional race sponsor Red Bull , which promised to inject excitement into the event.

The teams are now projecting competitive scrappiness rather than erudite sophistication, with a racecourse that encourages close encounters at speeds reaching 58 mph. But the dangers are mitigated this year, since there’s an electronic boundary around each boat that dishes out penalties to competitors that wander into their opponents’ territories.

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Last week’s series, which pitted one team against another in head-to-head match races, showed flashes of brilliance and many self-inflicted errors, but also how fast and nimble the AC75s are.

The New York Yacht Club’s American Magic team, which took third place overall because of a broken rudder early in the series, beat the New Zealand Defenders soundly on the last day of racing, showing the world it was a serious contender. American Magic’s AC75, called Patriot, outdistanced the Kiwis by more than nearly 700 yards on the final stretch.  “It’s hard not to be happy, but we still got third in the series,” says Terry Hutchinson, skipper and president of American Magic. “You may win a couple of battles but don’t win the war, so you’ve got to keep the bigger picture in mind. That’s what we will do.”

The pundits seem to be favoring Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli and American Magic as the top contenders of the Defenders, with the Swiss Alinghi Red Bull Racing, with its team of young sailors, the U.K. team INEOS and France’s Orient Express Racing, on the second tier. The Kiwis are generally seen as the Cup favorites, helped by the fact that they won’t be racing any other teams until they meet the Louis Vuitton Cup winner in the America’s Cup finals.

“The America’s Cup is already over, we just don’t know who won yet,” Grant Dalton, head of ETNZ, told Robb Report several weeks ago. “The crew is important, but the only possible winner of the competition will be the fastest boat. The decisions that teams took from a technical point of view two years ago and the people that were hired, have dictated—not will dictate—the outcome already.” Not surprisingly, Dalton favored his own team as the Cup winners, with the Italians placing second.

But the dynamics could change over the next few months as the teams become more familiar with their boats and racing conditions in the Med. Beyond a team’s racing prowess, a mechanical failure could end the hopes of any team at a critical juncture. That happened to American Magic in the 2021 Louis Vuitton series.

Last week’s round-robins gave a glimpse of how the next races could unfold as the five Challenger teams compete against each other. For the most part, the boats performed well through the four days, with the final day being particularly challenging, with unstable winds and a confused sea state. Most were worried about boats breaking, something that could’ve been disastrous just days away from the Louis Vuitton Cup. But the teams soldiered on with only minor technical problems, looking forward to what should be a great three months of racing.

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