In Auckland, New Zealand, the 75-foot foilers will be wedged into small, inshore boundary-constrained racetracks where wind shifts still matter, but given the speed of the boats and the dimensions of the racecourse, it’s about a minute of sailing between ­boundaries. Tack on shifts? Maybe not. Given the cost of maneuvers, it could very well be worth the distance loss of sailing a header for a short period in order to earn a longer board on the other tack. Change is ­ubiquitous in the America’s Cup, and when the boat type changes, so too does the role of the weather team, an important component of every serious Cup syndicate. In the early days of a campaign, the weather team plays a crucial role in boat design. I can still remember my first Cup campaign, when design-team manager Robert Hopkins explained how the team had commissioned a huge weather study of the winds off Fremantle, Australia, and how the winds change during the racing period from October to February. The study helped the designers come up with dozens of candidate designs that were then “virtually” raced against each other in a digital regatta with the same qualification rounds with ­escalating point value, just like the real thing. Employing a ­science called “game theory,” the Stars & Stripes design team then determined which boat of the many candidate designs would survive the lighter, early springtime rounds of the trials, thrive in the heavy air of the later trial rounds, and still have the speed to win the Cup in the moderating sea breezes of the later summer. It all sounded pretty Buck Rogers-esque to me, but clearly they got it right, because we won the Cup in four straight races after surviving the trial’s early rounds and thriving in the heavy air of the later rounds.

The science of historical weather analysis has greatly improved since those days, and today, Cup weather teams’ early historical research continues to provide an important foundation for the design team. Historical data used includes the “re-analysis products” of weather models plus archived observation data. And because the Cup was held in Auckland in 2000 and 2003, there is a lot of high-quality local historical buoy and sensor data to pull from. At this important stage, teams also benefit from the experience of their weather gurus.

Roger Badham, whose local knowledge of Auckland weather started out in the early days of the 18-Foot Skiffs, has been working with Team New Zealand since the Cup was last in Auckland. American Magic’s Chris Bedford is on his 10th Cup campaign (we were rookies together on Dennis Conner’s Stars & Stripes team in Australia). Whether it’s historical analysis or interpreting today’s weather in Auckland, experience counts, and these veterans add incredible value to the raw science and data they are working with. Logistics is another early-stage subject that Cup weather teams are asked to contribute to. American Magic’s choice of training grounds in Pensacola, Florida, for example, was due in large part to its similarity to the AC racecourses in Auckland. But helping pick the training bases isn’t the end of the weather team’s role in logistics and operations. Juan Vila, a veteran Cup sailor, Volvo Ocean Race-winning navigator and meteorologist for INEOS Team UK, says that at some point in the campaign, pretty much everyone on the team will come to him for his input. And that includes crane operators tasked with safely launching and hauling these flying machines. On a daily and weekly basis, the meteorologist’s input helps the team plan everything, from when and where to sail on a particular day to achieve a particular goal (e.g., light-air transition to foiling) to when to schedule those crucial workdays for the boatbuilding team. Every Cup weather team will utilize a variety of weather models, some of which will be familiar to any sailor and others who are customized for the race area. To keep the “arms race” at bay, Cup rules limit data collection, so no lidar and other “science projects” that have been used in past Cups.

“Valencia (2007) was the height of craziness in ‘weather world,’” Bedford says. “The cold war of weather ­information had gotten out of hand. We’d gone from a Cup campaign with one weather boat to a dozen weather boats, several dozen weather buoys, drones —extremely expensive.”

For this Cup, a communally funded weather-buoy network, managed by PredictWind, has been created, and all teams have access to this live and historical data, as well as instrument data coming off their sailboat and chase boats (allowed only when the team’s sailboat is on the water). Once the race committee gets into action, their wind data (including wind direction and speed on the race marks) will be added to the communal network. Bedford is a fan of the communal concept, as is Badham, who once managed a seven-­person weather team for Emirates Team New Zealand.

“The ‘met’ role changed hugely with the change from slow boat to fast boat” after Valencia 2007. Bedford continues, “With the slow boat, you were a ­critical decision-maker—what side to protect, how to start, how to play the first half of the beat—that was the weather game.” Now, he says, with the speeds of the AC75, there’s a different emphasis, and the role of the met team has become incrementally less when it comes to real-time racecourse management. Once the racing gets closer, however, the weather team will be intimately involved in foil configuration and setup decisions.

American Magic’s testing manager, Anderson Reggio, says, “The rules require us to commit to our boat configuration a few days before the start of each round,” which is three days before the round robins and five days for Prada Cup Finals and the Cup. “With rounds varying in length from seven to 15 days, the uncertainties of a long-range weather forecast make it hard to get too fancy with your choice of foils.”

But there are other mode changes that can be legally made, and like the Cup days before wingsails, sail-selection decisions are back in the mix. “The rule allows you to carry a Code Zero and a headsail, but with 25-minute races, sail changes just aren’t happening. So it will come down to picking the headsail and the mainsail,” Reggio says. “Sail-limitation rules limit teams to a quiver of 10 mains and 29 headsails (including Code Zeros) to choose from for any race.” Clearly there will be other wind-speed-related mode changes and boat tweaks that teams will be striving to learn about throughout the final work-up to the Trials and the during the racing.

“Setting up the boat for race day is important, but with the new configuration rules, my role in this has changed even since Bermuda,” Badham notes. “There I had a huge role; we had a mode change for every knot and a half of wind speed—­different rudders, elevators and such. I would give a preliminary forecast at 0530, and by 0700, the tips were bogged onto the foil, and they were headed to the autoclave. That’s been ­curtailed this time.”

Bedford says that the dynamic of the racing is different with the short courses and constricted dimensions, which doesn’t allow for much separation between the boats. “The classic ‘left or right’ call is no longer that important, but there is a necessity for the race team to understand the wind field, and I’m on hand to update and interpret what’s happening in real time with the passing of a cloud, or whether the west-coast sea breeze makes it through to the racetrack,” Bedford says. Understanding the wind field during the race remains ultra-important to the sailors. Along with the basic general rules of sailing in pressure and maximizing progress up and down the ladder rungs, we’ve already discussed the importance of understanding shifts and how the skew of the racetrack could affect the tactics of sailors trying to minimize maneuvers. Another wind-related consideration is prestart patterns. For this Cup, we are back to upwind starts, and these foiling boats present new challenges, especially given the geographic constraints of the starting box.

Teams may have certain favored prestart patterns based on the wind speed, so that might be the final of many important calls that the weather team provides before communications are cut off before racing. There are five potential course areas the race committee may choose for the America’s Cup Match and Prada Cup challenger elimination series, all of which will be influenced by land effects. The infamous west-coast southwest sea breeze will have a much better chance of displacing the east-coast northeasterly sea breeze by race times later in the day. This double sea-breeze situation is thanks to geographic features—especially the fact that New Zealand’s North Island is very narrow at Auckland’s latitude. Along with predicting which sea breeze will win, geographic effects on the wind flow and strong tidal currents are key features that the weather team is charged with deciphering on the 2021 Cup racetrack. As Reggio points out, most, if not all, of the raceboats will have no speed sensor other than a high-accuracy GPS. To solve the wind triangle and derive true-wind speed and direction on the boat’s instruments, one must add in values for current set and drift. Reggio oversees American Magic’s proprietary current model based on public data, which is loaded into the raceboat’s instrument system to resolve the wind triangle. This method was first employed by Cup teams in 2013 in the racing on current-infested San Francisco Bay. Another “opposites day” type twist to Cup racing in boats that can VMG faster than the wind is that adverse current on ­downwind legs is advantageous!

Though the America’s Cup game keeps changing, one thing that has not is that a ­sailor’s world revolves around the wind, and a Cup weather team remains a crucial element to success. The job begins early each day, with study of the local weather’s big picture—what Bedford calls the “forecast funnel”—before focusing down to the local scale and the bevy of weather models, observations, radar and satellite imagery that all help provide the “guidance” that gets turned into the morning forecast. Communication continues throughout the day with the various briefings, in some form or another, to help the different departments plan. The fun part comes when all the observations have come in, all the model runs have been crunched, and the meteorologists can look up at the sky to try to add even more value to the continuous and dynamic job of forecasting the weather.

“I was probably the first meteorologist on a chase boat doing the weather (in 1983), but with these fast boats, I prefer to be on a good spot overlooking the course,” Badham says. “Before the race, I’ll ride my bike there with my two laptops and a mobile phone. There are days you look at the laptop more than the sky and vice versa, but if you really understand weather, you look at both. No question the weather-team game has changed over my career. I’ve gone from being the one person on the weather team to the arms race that peaked in Valencia, and now I’m back to being a one-man team in what well might be my last Cup.” To put a Cup weather team’s “reduced role” in perspective, consider that during a 30-minute Zoom call with Badham to research this story, he got two calls from Emirates Team New Zealand veteran sailor and coach Ray Davies, who was out on the water with the team’s new AC boat, conferring about passing rain cells and their effect on the wind. And Badham wasn’t even on-site yet. He was still holed up in his quarantine accommodations. Suffice it to say, he expects exponentially more calls as ­racing approaches. Everyone needs their weatherman.

The post The Role of the Modern America’s Cup Weatherman appeared first on Sailing World.

Andrew Campbell is huddled in the front of the starboard cockpit of American Magic’s Patriot as the dark-blue beast of a boat hits takeoff speed on New Zealand’s Hauraki Gulf. As the fantastical-looking Patriot rises up on its foils and skims over the tops of the waves, Campbell is flying the 75-foot monohull.

Yes, flying it. He is, after all, the flight controller. Welcome to the whiz-bang world of the 36th America’s Cup, which is jam-packed with both technology and a sense of the unknown.

Campbell has one of the most unique jobs in the America’s Cup, aboard perhaps the most complex class of boat on the planet, the AC75. Working in concert with helmsman Dean Barker and mainsail ­trimmer Paul Goodison, Campbell’s ability to fly Patriot will go a long way in determining whether American Magic can return the Auld Mug to the New York YC, which once enjoyed a 132-year ­winning streak in sailing’s marquee event.

“Yeah, essentially that’s my job,” 36-year-old Campbell says from Auckland. “It does take some coordination between the three guys: Paul Goodison trimming the mainsail, Dean driving, and then our jib trimmers. All the surfaces need to be all sorted out and in line, and the boatspeed has to be right for us to take off and get out of the water. But essentially it’s my job to decide when we’re going to take off and then to actually execute that. My actions make the boat take off.”

This America’s Cup will be nothing if not visual. The AC75 uses twin canting T-foils to help lift the hull completely out of the water in order to increase speed. In the normal sailing mode, the AC75 skims above the waves, riding only on the leeward foil and rudder, with the windward foil raised out of the water to reduce drag.

When the boat tacks or jibes, the arm that had been in the water is raised and the other one is lowered into the water, making it look like a giant nautical creature skittering above the water.

“My 5-year-old said, ‘Hey, that looks like the whale shark from the aquarium.’ I couldn’t disagree with him,” Campbell says. “The boats are very strange-looking. The fact that each of the teams has put out such a different version of how the hull is shaped and all of the wings are different and the foils, it’s just a super-exciting time for the sport.”

Both foils can be lowered in prestarts and through other ­maneuvers to provide extra lift and roll control, which also will be useful in rougher sea conditions.

“My job on board is to control the surfaces that are underwater: the two foils, their cant angles, which is the up and down motion of the arms, their flap positions,” says Campbell, an Olympian whose father, Bill, sailed in three America’s Cup campaigns. “The trailing edge of the foil moves like an aileron flap. We also have control of the rudder rake like the previous catamarans did. Between the three surfaces that are underwater, my job is to make sure we can run them in a way that keeps the boat up in the air.”

In a simpler sense, “the sensation is closer to an aircraft during takeoff,” Campbell says. “You rumble along building speed, adjusting and trimming to heel and boatspeed like any normal boat, but when you pass through the critical boatspeed and know you have enough lift, the equilibrium loads up and adds the third dimension, and up she goes.

“The Moth or smaller foiling platforms are more sensitive in terms of the boatspeed being much lower and top speed limited by the righting moment. That’s what separates these boats. They are big, powerful, and they carry momentum that the little boats don’t have. Definitely fun times.”

Terry Hutchinson, American Magic’s skipper and executive ­director, echoes that thought.

“It’s no more complicated than in the same manner you would fly an airplane,” Hutchinson says. “At a certain boatspeed, at a certain flap angle and at a certain rudder rake angle, the boat will come out of the water.

“I look at Andrew’s job, and I think it’s the hardest job on the boat,” Hutchinson adds. “He has the responsibility of making sure the boat is flying and performing in a manner the designers have designed the boat to sail. Andrew’s job takes an incredible amount of concentration. He has to be very disciplined in how he approaches his job because ultimately he’s carrying the responsibility of 10 other people, on top of himself, on the boat. And at the pace the boat is traveling and the environment we’re operating in, it’s not an easy job to do it. He’s completely earned unending respect from the entire team because of the level he’s operating at. It’s exciting to watch.”

Campbell says he doesn’t feel pressure because he’s been doing the job since day one of the program.

When American Magic began sailing its half-size test boat, the Mule, two years ago, it had a crew of only five. Campbell ­volunteered to be the flight controller.

“Having done the tactician role and driving out of the jibes and all that stuff with Oracle last time, I had a fair amount of experience doing it, and so I felt confident I could do it,” Campbell says. “And then all of a sudden, you look around the room, and no one else is that confident that they can do it, so it’s like, OK, here we are. You’re the tall poppy all of a sudden. That’s the one that’s easy to cut and say, ‘OK, you’re going to go out and do this.’ It didn’t fall into my lap, but it was something I was happy to pick up the responsibility for and run with it, and it’s turned into an interesting job. The learning curve is definitely steep. It’s been really interesting.

“I don’t come from an engineering background ­necessarily,’’ continues Campbell, the College Sailor of the Year in 2006. “My education is in diplomacy. I have a foreign-service degree from Georgetown. It’s not doing me a lot of good, yet. It helps me ­politically get through some of the meetings.”

The foil arms are one-design for all teams, but the American Magic’s flight system and software were developed in-house, with help from innovation partner Airbus.

“This is the third platform,” Campbell says. “We’ve gone through a lot of foils, and every foil is different and has its own little nuances, and they’ll bite you in the ass if you get it wrong every once in a while. It’s a fun game to play because it’s so dynamic.”

These are high-risk/high-reward boats that will sail faster than 50 knots. Nail the maneuvers, and the results can be sensational. Miss, and there will be trouble.

Patriot went for its first sail in mid-October. On its first jibe, the boat began to rise into the air and then nosedived into the pristine waters. Hutchinson said that was due to the rudder cavitating.

Trouble can be just an instant away.

“It’s easy to get out of sync, and when you do, they bite pretty hard, because it’s a lot of momentum and the boats are big,” Campbell says. “The 50-foot catamarans were kind of rough-and-tumble because they were smaller. It was a bit more like a sports-car feel. This is more like crashing a bus. If you come off wrong and you put the thing in, the momentum shift of the piece of equipment is staggering because it’s so much bigger.

“We’ve already been close a couple of times with this new ­platform. It’s an animal. If you’ve got it kind of calm and working and in range, you’re happy. It’s like a riding a horse out of the gate at a rodeo. If you don’t quite have it right, you’ve got to be able to recognize really quickly how to get it back in the range, otherwise you’re going to get bit.”

Not surprisingly, American Magic is tight-lipped about how Campbell controls the foils.

“He waves his magic wand, and up she comes,” Hutchinson jokes. “We’re just going to call it a control center.”

“I wish I could,” Campbell says when asked if he could describe the controls. “It’d be easy for you to see in a spy boat for sure what I’ve got going. It’s essentially a tool that allows me to pretty accurately put the foils in a position where I know where they are and where I don’t have to look at the controller in order to do it. It’s an electronic box. My actions are kind of directly put into the foils and the rudder. I have absolute control over the flap and the rams that are running the rudder rake. It’s all at my fingertips, and it’s just a question of being patient and calm enough to make sure I don’t overbake it.”

Campbell has an America’s Cup pedigree. His father, Bill, sailed with three campaigns from 1983-1995, an era that spanned the 12 Metres and the IACC sloops. He was a navigator on Courageous during the 1983 Defender Trials in Newport, Rhode Island, helmed the B boat and was sailing team manager with America’s Cup champion America3 in 1992, and served as tactician, navigator and B-boat helmsman with Nippon Challenge in 1995.

“From my standpoint, it’s so much fun having him so involved in sailing and so involved at this level. I can relate to how important it must be for him,” Bill Campbell says, from the family’s home in San Diego.

Getting used to his son’s job title has been another thing.

“No kidding. Who’d have thought, right? He keeps the boat in the air, up off the water,” he says, with a chuckle.

It’s been an interesting America’s Cup evolution for the Campbell family, from the relatively plodding sloops Bill sailed on to the flying machine Andrew helps sail.

Bill says he’s never sailed on a foiling boat. “I don’t have that ­feeling for what it’s like,” he says. “Andrew has told us it’s like all of a sudden you get up off the water and the boat just takes off, and it’s incredible acceleration up to the top speed it gets to.”

Twelve years ago, Andrew Campbell was sailing a Laser in the Beijing Olympics. Today, he’s at the controls of a boat that is like nothing any of the crew has ever sailed.

“It’s a completely different world, completely different sensation,” Campbell says. “You have to be so focused on what’s happening. It so quickly gets out of balance that you can’t afford to lose track of where you are.

“I come in off the water not having done any physical exertion, basically, and I’m exhausted because I’m trying to be so focused on keeping the platform in such a narrow groove all day,” he says. “That, at the end of the day, is kind of the beauty of our sport. You have to be completely present and completely focused on what’s happening in that moment. Otherwise, things go wrong. We’re really lucky to be able to do that and not be distracted by other stuff for a few hours every day.”

The post Meet American Magic’s Flight Controller appeared first on Sailing World.

In the interest of full disclosure, let me start by saying that I sincerely hope the New York YC’s American Magic challenge returns triumphant from New Zealand come March 2021. Having expressed my wishful thinking, however, I do have some thoughts connecting the past with the forthcoming 36th America’s Cup.

Since 1987, the last three times the New York YC fielded ­challenging teams, the club was unable to reach the semifinal races. When Larry Ellison’s BMW Oracle Racing successfully challenged in 2010 (the lopsided Deed of Gift match against Alinghi, sailing under the burgee of the Golden Gate YC) with the big ­trimaran USA-17, no other American teams were invited to compete. The New York YC had to wait until the Cup left our shores before making another challenge. In 2017, that opportunity became available when Emirates Team New Zealand handily defeated Oracle Team USA in a 7-to-1 regatta in Bermuda.

A nascent new syndicate, led by Cup veteran and New York YC member Terry Hutchinson, with financial and managerial backing by club members John J. “Hap” Fauth and Doug DeVos, launched their effort soon after the races concluded in Bermuda. A few months later, auto-racing leader Roger Penske joined the syndicate. It should be noted that the DeVos family owns the NBA’s Orlando Magic. There’s certainly a connection by name between the two teams.

The group got off to a fast start by recruiting a deep ­international team of designers, sailors, builders and managers, and then asked the New York YC if they could challenge on the club’s behalf. It had been nearly 40 years since the club last won the America’s Cup, and its board of trustees eagerly signed on with the team. For many members, the America’s Cup is a new experience because 50 ­percent of the current 3,200-person membership joined after the club’s last challenge in 2003. Less than 10 percent of the ­membership were members during their last victory in 1980.

The old expression “there is no second” still holds true 170 years after Queen Victoria was reportedly given that answer when, in 1851, she asked who was second when the schooner America was about to cross the finish line after racing around the Isle of Wight. As most readers know—and it bears repeating—the America’s Cup is a winner-take-all contest. The victor takes the trophy and the event to their home waters. For American Magic and the New York YC, that would mean bringing the regatta back to Newport, Rhode Island, where it was contested for decades.

When Dennis Conner lost the Cup to Australia in September 1983, I wondered at the time if we would ever see it sail again on Rhode Island Sound. This might be the club’s best chance to make that happen. The first ingredient to a successful campaign is building adequate funding for a three-year effort. To date, American Magic has raised an estimated $130 million. INEOS Team UK is said to have more than enough in its budget. The Italian Challenger of Record, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Team, has less funding compared with the Americans and the British, I’m told. Curiously, the Defender, Emirates Team New Zealand, appears to have considerably less funds available than all three challengers, but they have proved resourceful in the past—and remember, they’re racing on their home waters.

The challenger fleet is small, and while it’s disappointing to the hosts to have so few teams, it should be expected given the enormous costs to develop the new foiling monohull, sustain a three-year campaign, and then compete in distant venues. If the America’s Cup is to thrive in the future, the astronomical cost of competing has to be drastically reduced.

We have witnessed, however, that having more money does not guarantee a win. And that’s because so many factors contribute to a successful campaign: a strong sailing team, a fast boat, a well-managed operation and, yes, a little luck certainly helps. I have watched many Cup races that could easily have had a different result if not for a wind shift or boathandling error. The unpredictability is what makes watching the America’s Cup so intriguing, both on and off the water.

This is the seventh time, since 1958, that a new class of boat will be used for the Cup Match. The modern progression has been fascinating to witness, starting with the 51-year-old 12 Metre design in 1958, Conner’s Deed of Gift catamaran against the New Zealander’s 120-foot sloop, then the 82-foot IACC sloops, Alinghi’s big catamaran versus Oracle’s gigantic trimaran, large then small foiling catamarans with the AC72 and AC50s, and now 75-foot ­foiling monohulls. That’s quite a variety of vessels. Creating a new America’s Cup class boat is an expensive and intellectual challenge for every team. Today, the design and technical teams are robust and include naval architects, engineers, composite-boat builders, aeronautical engineers and all sorts of specialists. In all, more than 140 people are part of the American Magic team, and only a tiny fraction of those are actually sailors on the boat.

The first task for an America’s Cup technical team is to ensure that the boat stays together in one piece. While syndicates rarely reveal equipment breakages or setbacks, there have been many incidents for all four teams as they’ve pushed their unknown boats to unfamiliar limits. Each team has capsized during testing, which makes for dramatic video, but I’m sure it keeps the sailors up at night thinking about how hard they should be pushing these speedy foiling machines. Fortunately, and as intended by the rule, quick ­capsize recovery is a reality.

At this writing, second-generation AC75s seem to be ­holding together better than first-generation boats, and that’s to be expected as they push the limits early and ahead of any actual racing.

American Magic enlisted the Spanish naval-architecture firm of Marcelino Botin to lead its design group. Botin designed Fauth’s maxi Bella Mente, worked with Team Zealand during the 2007 America’s Cup, has designed successful Volvo Ocean Race yachts, as well as groundbreaking TP52s for DeVos’ Quantum Racing Team. Aerospace company Airbus is an American Magic partner working closely with the design team, particularly on foil design.

The British challenger, whose sailing team is led by Sir Ben Ainslie, has a veteran design team and is consulting with Mercedes F1 Applied Science. Reports indicate that their first AC75 design was a disappointment, but their second boat is showing impressive speed during its trials off Auckland in October. The boat features a long skeg (or bustle) being used as an endplate between the hull and the water to generate more speed. America’s Cup veteran Grant Simmer is INEOS Team UK’s CEO, and he brings a successful track record that includes serving as a crew aboard Australia II in 1983, overseeing two winning Alinghi campaigns in 2003 and 2007, and managing the successful Oracle campaigns in 2010 and 2013. Ainslie took over as tactician during Oracle’s amazing comeback in San Francisco in 2013, and has four Olympic gold medals and one silver medal in his keep.

The Italian challenger, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Team, is led by Max Sirena, who is on his seventh Cup campaign and was a member of New Zealand’s winning team in 2017, along with two-time ­Cup-winning helmsman, James Spithill.

RELATED: Luna Rossa’s America’s Challenge Shoots for the Moon

Emirates Team New Zealand has the double responsibility of hosting the Cup and fielding a defense. It is a daunting task, laden with many distractions. Based on the success of hosting the Cup in 2000 and 2003, however, New Zealand will no doubt run an exceptional regatta and most certainly field a strong sailing team. Grant Dalton returns as CEO, and it’s worth noting that all of his America’s Cup teams have reached the Cup final. The New Zealand sailing team includes Olympic gold medalists Peter Burling and Blair Tuke, along with ace wing trimmer Glenn Ashby. They will be a hard squad to beat.

America’s Cup history is a helpful guide when trying to figure out which team might prevail. Since Australia defeated the New York YC in 1983, the Challenger of Record has prevailed in five of the last 10 America’s Cups. In 1995, the winning challenger was able to successfully defend one time (2000) and then lost the Cup in 2003. Alinghi won its challenge in 2003 and successfully defended in 2007, only to lose in 2010. Continuing with this trend, an American syndicate won in 2010, defended in 2013, and lost in 2017. If one were to believe statistical patterns, New Zealand would defend in 2021 and then lose the following match. It makes for a nifty theory, but trends don’t always hold water.

With all this in mind, is it feasible for the New York YC to bring the America’s Cup to its shoreline again? Well, there are several things to watch during the Prada Cup Challenger Series and the 36th America’s Cup Match presented by Prada. Will one boat start off sailing faster than the others? Will the other teams be able to improve their boat’s speed over the course of the trials? Will we see crews being rotated off the starting roster? Will New Zealand be able to trial-race against the challengers?

The challengers will want to check in without giving away too much information about their speed. It is a tricky balance. The challengers have a big advantage by being able to race against each other and advance their performance and sailing capability. This is one of the most important advantages the challengers have. New Zealand will have to rely on in-house competition (and simulation) to improve.

American Magic was lucky to have avoided shipping its yacht to Europe for canceled America’s Cup World Series events in early 2020. Emirates Team New Zealand lost considerable time because its first AC75 was stuck on a ship for months. The canceled regattas forced teams to base their design evolution with computer modeling and limited on-the-water testing. Hutchinson says their computer prediction models are remarkably close to what they are now seeing on the water in Auckland.

New Zealand has also been forced to deal with endless legal movements by the Challenger of Record. It is questionable whether these are legitimate complaints or an attempt to distract the Defender, but most of these issues are resolved by an appointed arbitration panel. American Magic and INEOS Team UK have been able to steer clear of any legal brouhahas and have instead focused on their sailing.

Usually a new design creates a wide gap in performance between the boats. The ability to accurately record performance on the water is highly sophisticated today, so I presume each team will have a good idea about the speed of their competitors too. I am going to make a bold prediction that the speeds of all four boats will be relatively close. The real difference will be in how they adapt and improve as the competition progresses.

I added up the ages of the winning America’s Cup helmsmen between 1958 and 2017, and found that 42 was the average age. This America’s Cup features three helmsmen in their 40s and one in his 20s. At this writing, Burling is 29, Spithill is 41, Ainslie is 43, and Barker is 47. Historically they are all in their prime America’s Cup years, but I suspect the younger Burling will have an advantage as Bermuda’s winning helmsman. He’s incredibly smart, fast and fearless.

Hutchinson, by the way, is 52 and is the oldest sailor competing aboard any of the boats in New Zealand. He has spent his entire adult life as a professional sailor. He was a two-time College Sailor of the Year at Old Dominion and has been a skipper, tactician or sail trimmer in a wide variety of campaigns. His list of victories is impressive, including world-championship wins in the J/24, Farr 40 and TP52 classes, as well as considerable time racing in the America’s Cup.

Hutchinson was a trimmer with Paul Cayard’s AmericaOne ­campaign in 2000, and tactician with Stars & Stripes in 2003. Notably, he served as the tactician for Team New Zealand in 2007. That crew made the final round against Alinghi and gave the Swiss a good fight before losing 5-to-2 in a series of nail-biting races. More important, for the 2000 America’s Cup, Hutchinson was inside the New Zealand camp and learned how they operate.

Barker, from New Zealand, is Hutchinson’s helmsman for one obvious reason: experience under pressure. Barker was the backup helmsman for Team New Zealand in 2000 and even steered the final race. Since then, he has competed in the Olympic Games (Finn 2004), reached the Cup final two times and, like Hutchinson, has been racing nonstop for nearly four decades.

There is a long history of winning America’s Cup sailors who endured losing before they ultimately won. Some names that come to mind include Ted Hood, Bus Mosbacher, Ted Turner, Ed Baird, Australian John Bertrand, Buddy Melges and Spithill. Hutchinson and Barker are poised to follow in the footsteps of these America’s Cup Hall of Famers.

Emirates Team New Zealand has to be considered the favorite because they are racing on their home waters, and have demonstrated their ability to create a fast package and a resilient, tightknit squad in Bermuda. Defending the Cup, with the added responsibility of hosting, is never easy, as several Defenders have learned in recent years. As I stated at the outset, however, I’m hopeful for an American Magic victory. The team has the sailing talent, the design-team expertise, and the funding and management skills to bring the America’s Cup back to the United States. Newport and all American sailors, young and old, await the results with bated breath.

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It might seem bold to strategize internally about a future sporting competition that has yet to be won, but the America’s Cup is such a complex event that it requires early planning. All four teams competing in Auckland for the 36th America’s Cup believe they can win, and they are surely thinking about what’s best for this venerable regatta should they get their hands on the Auld Mug.

The biggest reward (or burden, some might say) for successfully challenging is the right to host it on home waters. This is one of the key incentives dating back to the first defense in 1870, and it stands true today. Just ask New Zealanders, who have poured millions into Auckland’s waterfront development, or Larry Ellison, who transformed once-derelict piers on San Francisco Bay into a pop-up international sporting stage. The same is true of America’s Cup yachts. There has been a dramatic acceleration of new designs since 1988, and while there is little that’s ever predictable about the Cup, one thing is for certain for the next defense: The boat of choice will evolve again.

Flag officers of the New York YC, alongside principles of the American Magic ­challenge, have been quietly discussing what the next America’s Cup might look like should they prevail in Auckland. Returning the Cup to its deeper roots is a core ­component of these ongoing discussions. The New York YC, in concert with a long list of challengers between 1870 and 1983, changed the parameters of the racing boats many times. The International 12 Metre Class proved to be an enduring yacht that was used for 10 Cup cycles. One reason for the 12 Metre’s longevity is that most sailors relate to the elegant sloops. Tradition-minded sailors, and the general public, either don’t embrace or comprehend the 75-foot foiling monohulls that will race off Auckland.

The questions being asked today, therefore, are focused on the type of boat: What format would attract a larger number of challengers and defenders? What design innovations will trickle down to the rest of the sport? How can the gargantuan costs be reduced? And what kind of event will attract a large viewing audience?

Doug DeVos, one of three principal backers of American Magic, shared his thoughts with me about one month before the racing began in Auckland. “It’s so advanced,” he says of the AC75s. “It’s cool to see, but it’s just so far away. The sailing skills are very different than what you have traditionally.”

However, he does believe that if American Magic prevails, the impact of the ­current Cup will be positive. “We believe it’s hugely important to connect with all yacht clubs around the country,” he says. “When you have a premier global event that has this incredible legacy and history, there is tremendous engagement and enthusiasm. It’s vibrant and allows every sailor to talk about it. It gives sailors the confidence to talk about their sport to nonsailors, and engage new people and their friends and future generations.”

Like DeVos, another American Magic principal and longtime racing sailor, Hap Fauth, has been dreaming about having a hand on the Cup for many years. “The first time I saw the 12 Metres in Newport when I was a young man, it left a blazing image. I’ve never lost the view of the America’s Cup through the 12 Metre lens. I hoped one day to ­participate,” he says. “I met Doug DeVos—he was on the same page with the same intensity that I was. We recruited Roger Penske, and here we are. The icing on the cake will be winning the America’s Cup, and that’s what we are here to do.”

Penske has been involved in boating for many years. The America’s Cup is a new event for him, but he brings a tremendous amount of experience from his competing in high-tech auto racing. He recently explained his philosophy about winning to a large group of American Magic backers. “I’ve learned that individuals don’t win; teams win,” he says. “When you are competing at the highest levels in sports, success does not come easily. My father taught me at an early age that effort equals results. That has become a theme in our business, and in racing that still holds true.”

It’s easy to understand why DeVos, Fauth and Penske are so passionate about ­winning back the America’s Cup. It’s a combination of patriotic pride, the quest to engage more people to sail, and the thrill of competition. All three have followed the America’s Cup their entire lives and are motivated to bring the trophy home. As for the future, the trio has left the details of the next America’s Cup to the yacht-club leadership.

New York YC Commodore Chris Culver has been working on the America’s Cup with a sharp eye toward the future. He is very clear about the direction he would like to see the Cup head should American Magic prevail. “The America’s Cup needs to be about national and country pride,” he says. “We want to see more challengers, and this will happen if we make the Cup more economically feasible. The yacht club should play an important role like it has in the past. We have to better balance sailing skill and technology.”

As for the type of boat, he was careful not to engage in a discussion on design but did share broad parameters. “We are going to put the boat back into the water,” he says. “It will be somewhere between 80 and 100 feet in length. It will be a displacement monohull that is good for traditional match racing. You need to be able to see the boats from a distance, and the boats need to be majestic.”

To reduce the high cost of campaigning, he says, they need to keep it simple: “If you reduce the time it takes to design the boat and campaign it, the costs will be lower.”

The America’s Cup has not had a formal Defender Series since the San Diego YC hosted one in 1995. One reason New York YC was able to defend the Cup between 1870 and 1980 was competition between defenders. Defense trials always helped the top boat improve. The lack of a Defender Series, starting in 2000, is likely one reason the Defender has lost the America’s Cup in three of the past six matches. Commodore Culver did not state that there would be a Defender Series, but I encourage the club to make it a priority.

Culver tells me the America’s Cup would likely be raced off Rhode Island but added that the New York YC would need support with this undertaking. Advance discussions have already been had with state officials. “We would need good waterfront real estate to house the team compounds,” Culver says. Every previous America’s Cup venue—whether in Newport, Auckland, Fremantle, Valencia, San Francisco or Bermuda—has established a partnership with the regional authorities. The economic benefits have been substantial, which explains why syndicates are so inspired to win the Cup.

Governance of the America’s Cup has varied dramatically since the trophy left Newport in 1983. Culver is clear that there is no need to change the Deed of Gift. However, he says, there is a need to create a sustainable protocol: “There needs to be a good governance structure in place so [the protocol] is not changing from Cup to Cup.”

The America’s Cup has traveled all over the world since the Australians won it. We have seen a range of yachts, formats and venues. The technology changes, but the basic human drive to excel has always been the common thread that makes the biggest event in sailing so alluring. We will know the winner of the 36th Defense in March 2021, and if American Magic is successful, the America’s Cup will be in good hands as we move in to the future. Now let’s get to the racing.

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Donald Tofias has an expression he’s quite fond of. So fond, In fact, he trademarked it and put it on the back of a crew shirt for his W-76 Wild Horses. “Yachting is the winner” it said.

“The reason we came up with the phrase is when we first started racing the W-76, we didn’t win a lot of races,” says Tofias, of Newport, R.I. “But when we did win, we’d say, ‘Yachting is the winner.’”

Racing opportunities this summer for Wild Horses, a 76-foot wooden yacht that combines a classic hull form with a modern underbody and construction methods, have been far and few between. It isn’t the sort of boat on which you can gather a few friends for a weeknight bash around some government marks. Sailing in a spinnaker division takes a crew of 20. Even racing in a non-spinnaker division, as Wild Horses did for the 166th Annual Regatta this weekend, requires a dozen more people on board.

“I’ve always loved the Annual Regatta,” says Tofias, who won the Non-Spinnaker Class this weekend with two firsts and a third. “I think I’ve done it most every year for the better part of 30 years. I didn’t want to miss it. We had the boat on the mooring all summer, and it was time to race. We hadn’t sailed much on the boat at all until the Sail For Hope on September 12. We did well in Sail For Hope, so we decided to do the Annual Regatta also.”

The Annual Regatta was first sailed on the Hudson River on July 16 and 18, 1846. A similar competition the previous year was called a Trial of Speed. With a few exceptions for world wars and other global crises, the event has been held every year since. For the majority of its existence, the New York Yacht Club held its Annual Regatta on waters close to New York City. Since 1988, however, the event has been sailed out of the Harbour Court clubhouse in Newport, R.I., and has settled into the current three-day format, which includes a race around Conanicut Island on Friday and two days of buoy racing or navigator-course racing on Saturday and Sunday. The 166th Annual Regatta, which is sponsored by Hammetts Hotel and Helly Hansen, also included the 2020 Melges IC37 National Championship.

The Annual Regatta is traditionally held in early June, at the start of the Newport sailing season. But due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was pushed back first to late August before finally settling on the first weekend in October.

“We were committed to running this event,” says New York Yacht Club Commodore William P. Ketcham (Greenwich, Conn.). “Which is why we kept delaying the event rather than canceling it outright. It was challenge, but we finally got to a point where we could run it based on Rhode Island’s COVID guidelines and our own Club policies on safety. The enthusiasm on the water, both this weekend and at last weekend’s Race Week at Newport presented by Rolex, was tremendous. Our team on Maxine packed basically our entire sailing season into two weeks, and we couldn’t have had more fun.”

With 11 points in four races, Ketcham’s J/44 Maxine placed second in ORC 3. At the head of the class was Tom Sutton’s Leading Edge. While Sutton hails from Houston, Texas—where he lives and sails in the cooler months—Newport has become a second home.

With most multi-day sailing regattas in 2020 were canceled, the Leading Edge team cobbled together a summer of weeknight and one-day races in and around Narragansett Bay.

“We raced every race on Tuesday night and did the weekend regattas,” says Sutton. “We went to Block Island with the Twenty Hundred Club, we raced around Prudence Island two times, Conanicut Island four or five times. We’ve gotten in more sailboat racing than in most years. But we miss racing around the buoys. That’s what we really like.”

All that time on the water paid off this weekend with wins in Friday’s Around the Island Race as well as the weekend series around the buoys. Sutton was quick to share the credit, singling out his wife Diana for her work off the water and on the foredeck and the team’s tactical brain trust of Tom Meeh and Alex Crowell.

“My guys work as hard or harder than anybody,” says Tom Sutton. “We’ve sailed together since 2014 and everybody a great time this year. We’re all looking forward to coming back next summer.”

Due to the compressed sailing schedule for 2020, the second Melges IC37 National Championship was held concurrently with the Annual Regatta. The competition in the 13-boat one-design class was intense through each of the nine races. While consistency was elusive, Pacific Yankee, co-skippered by Drew Freides (Los Angeles, Calif.) and Bill Ruh (Newport Beach, Calif.), showed that it was without a doubt the fastest boat. The only wobbles in Pacific Yankee’s scoreline came today, in very light air, after they’d established an all-but-insurmountable lead through the first seven races. Pacific Yankee finished the championship 13 points ahead of Midnight Blue, skippered by Alexis Michas (New York, N.Y.), and Blazer II, skippered by New York Yacht Club Vice Commodore Christopher J. Culver (Newport, R.I.). Those two boats finished the regatta tied on points—and only 2 points ahead of fourth place—with Midnight Blue winning the tiebreaker.

“We’ve had almost the entire team together for the past year, and it takes a team to win on this boat,” says Freides. “We spent a lot of time trying to make the boat fast and we found a number of techniques to keep the boat flat. Like the Melges 20, you have to keep the boat flat and de-powered, especially in the waves, so that’s what we strived for.”

While the Annual Regatta has traditionally been restricted to larger boats, this year the Club opened the regatta up to two one-design classes that had never before competed in the event, Shields and Sonars. Over the course of three days, the two classes each completed nine races, with the Friday races being scored as a separate series. For the Shields class, which had its 2020 national championship canceled, this regatta was the next best thing.

“Our crew—Peter Schott, Rachel Balaban, Ted Hood and Matt Buechner, plus my co-skipper Reed Baer—have been sailing together for 20 years,” says class winner John Burnham (Middletown, R.I.) on Grace. “For the last 10, more often than not, the national champions have been either Aeolus or Maverick. The other boat that gives us fits is Ken Deyett’s Bit-O-Honey from Beverly Yacht Club in Marion, Mass. In this regatta, we were lucky to beat all three, so it felt almost like winning the Nationals we never had this year. On behalf of the class, I’d like to thank the New York Yacht Club for inviting us to race in the Annual Regatta this year

The 10-strong Sonar fleet consisted of boats chartered by New York Yacht Club members for the regatta. John Bainton (Norwalk, Conn.) won five of the nine races sailed and took the overall win in both the Friday and weekend series.

“It was just great to be able to do an actual event where we sailed for three days and had some good competition,” says Bainton. “Aside from missing the on-shore social part, it was a fantastic time on the water.

With a breeze that seemed to be always in flux, and the strong current generated by a moon tide running, Bainton said the key to success was his crew’s ability to keep their head out of the boat.

“The wind was very sporadic, so being able to see the wind up the course and read what the current was doing across the course was very important,” he says. “One of my crew members, Dale Harper, is actually a harbor pilot for Newport Harbor, so he as tremendous amount of knowledge of how the water moves through the harbor.”

In past years, the Annual Regatta would signal the start of the Newport sailing season, with competitors looking forward to Race Weeks in Newport or Block Island, or a long thrash to Bermuda. This year, however, it closes out the racing season. The summer of 2020 wasn’t what anyone expected, but those fortunate enough to participate in the 166th Annual Regatta will head into winter with fresh memories of competition and camaraderie.

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Proponents of team racing have set their sights on the discipline’s inclusion in the 2028 Olympic Regatta. The inaugural Global Team Race, which will be held Oct. 5 to 7 at the New York Yacht Club Harbour Court, may prove a crucial milestone on the long road to earning a place on sailing’s grandest stage.

The Global Team Race was created from scratch less than a year ago and will feature two-on-two team racing in the New York Yacht Club’s fleet of Sonar keelboats.

“We couldn’t be more pleased with the response we have received,” says event chair Steven Wolff, a veteran team racer and umpire. “We have teams coming from South America, Asia, Australia, Europe and the United Kingdom, in addition to teams from the United States. We had to turn away a handful of teams and there were others that would’ve applied to compete if they’d had more time to plan. Team racing is growing dramatically in Europe, particularly the two-on-two format. We are already planning a second edition for next year in Britain and hope to confirm shortly the following year in Europe.”

Keelboat team racing, which has been increasing in popularity over the last quarter century, is a comprehensive test of tactics, strategy, boatspeed and team work. Spinnakers are regularly used, adding another layer of difficulty to the mark roundings and downwind legs and increasing the opportunities for boats behind to catch up.

Traditionally, team racing was sailed in a three-on-three or four-on-four format. But two-on-two is logistically less demanding for both teams and regatta organizers. It’s also easier for spectators to follow. The winner of the match is whichever team doesn’t cross the finish line last.

“As long as one of a team’s boats is behind a one boat from the other team, there’s a chance for a comeback,” says Wolff. “Two-on-two is a better fit for international competition where competitors have to travel great distances because there’s fewer people required. And you can get more sailing with the same amount of resources. With the Club’s fleet of 22 Sonars, we can have 10 teams on the water at one time. We expect to do a tremendous number of races.”

The more races, the more opportunity for the best teams to rise to the top for an eventual championship round that will determine the overall winner. But choosing a champion is just one goal for this event. Whether it’s the America’s Cup; the Annual Regatta, which has run nearly every year since 1845; or the Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup the New York Yacht Club has a knack and a passion for creating long-standing, iconic sailing events. Organizers hope the Global Team Race follows a similar pattern.

“We have invited the anticipated hosts of the next two events in the hopes of improving the regatta for future editions,” says Wolff. “We’re preparing a declaration of trust for the Global Team Race, which is a deed of gift that will perpetuate the event. The ultimate goal is for this event to be seen as a world championship of keelboat team racing.”

Competing teams include Bayerischer YC (Germany), Dutch Match & Team Racing Assn. (Netherlands), Japan Sailing Federation (Japan), New York YC (New York), Reale Circolo Canottieri Tevere Remo (Italy), Royal Cork YC (Ireland), Royal Northern & Clyde YC (Scotland), Royal Thames YC (England), Sorrento Sailing Couta Boat Club (Australia), St. Francis YC (San Francisco), Yacht Club Argentino (Argentina) and Yacht Club Costa Smeralda (Italy).

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American raceboat owners Hap Fauth, of Naples, Florida, and Doug DeVos, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, were destined to make an appearance in the America’s Cup arena. Fauth, the intensely focused man behind the big wheel of the 72-foot Maxi Bella Mente, and DeVos at the tiller of Quantum Racing’s TP52, have both reached their respective pinnacles through long campaigns culminating with multiple world championship titles. Beyond every peak, however, lies another, and today Fauth, DeVos, and the New York YC, announced their intent to challenge for the 36th America’s Cup in 2021.

As Emirates Team New Zealand’s vision for the next edition came into sharper focus after winning in Bermuda in June, Fauth, DeVos and skipper Terry Hutchinson approached the New York YC to partner. “It’s another step toward what we feel is representative of the sport,” said Hutchinson in conference call today. “It’s been about six month’s worth of work, and the start of a lot more to come, but I look at our team today and we have a lot of great sailing infrastructure in place and a program that’s been operating at a very high level for the better part of five years.”

As far as the New York YC’s involvement, it’s early days and more of a supportive role. “We do expect some of the membership to be involved in the syndicate,” said Commodore Phil Lotz. “We’re not going to solicit the club for support. We will enjoy being part of a well thought out and promising challenge. We’re excited about the Protocol and what’s been announced so far. We are involved because we think New Zealand and the challenger are headed in the right direction.”

When you talk about winning and defending, in the grand scheme of things, if we’re successful on the water, the goal would be to have developed a team of younger sailors that can then go on and defend it. We have to do a good enough job to develop the younger generation.

Should the New York YC win it and find itself in the defensive position it once held for more than a century, says Lotz, Newport, Rhode Island, would the natural venue and plenty capable of hosting.

Announced as Bella Mente Quantum Racing Association, Hutchinson acknowledged that the timing was too early to talk budgets, but the challenge would continue to find commercial and private funding to support the challenge. “It will be a U.S.-flagged team,” says the Annapolis, Maryland, skipper who also stated he would not be the helmsman. “When you travel and race the 52s and 72s you realize there is a massive gap in sailing between my generation and those coming out of college. As a team, we want to attract the base of our sport and return the Cup back to the base of our support.”

“The America’s Cup is sailing’s most complex challenge,” says Fauth. “Winning takes a complete team effort, and I’ve always found tremendous satisfaction in bringing together a group of individuals in pursuit of one goal. With a return to a more traditional style of yacht and the windward-leeward courses with which the vast majority of racing sailors are intimately familiar, the 36th America’s Cup represents a unique opportunity to re-engage the grass roots of the sport and re-energize American sailing. A lot of what we’ve built with the Bella Mente program, and what Doug and his team have created with Quantum Racing, will go into the foundation of this campaign. But there’s still a tremendous amount of work to do over the next three-plus years. I’m excited to get started.”

Will the team be all American? Probably not, says Hutchinson. “The residency clause will be a difficult thing for teams to bring in outsiders. Our goal is a team that is U.S. based, one that is using and developing sailors in our country.

“When you talk about winning and defending, in the grand scheme of things, if we’re successful on the water, the goal would be to have developed a team of younger sailors that can then go on and defend it. We have to do a good enough job to develop the younger generation.”

In terms of details regarding the AC75 class expected to be announced in November, Hutchinson could not provide any further details but emphasized the challenge for Emirates Team New Zealand to balance participation, cost controls, and keeping the event as the technological pinnacle of sailing. “There will be a combination of advancements below the water and above the water,” he says. “Grant Dalton has a great responsibility and [Team New Zealand] is not taking it lightly.”

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