The America's Cup, at 173 years old, is the oldest international sporting trophy and stands as one of the hardest trophies for anyone to win in any sport. It takes a dedicated team, significant resources, and a lot of time and effort to win this trophy. The New York Yacht Club had those resources and put in the effort and won the event from its outset in 1851 and then held the trophy for 132 years up until 1983. Since then only Australia, Switzerland and New Zealand have been able to wrestle the trophy away from Team USA. Despite the US dominance for a long period of time, in recent years New Zealand have held the Cup, and they were certainly the team to beat last week.
The team is officially called Emirates Team New Zealand (Emirates are primary sponsor) and they are representing the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, a yacht club located in Westhaven Marina, Auckland, close to the Auckland Harbour Bridge facing on to the Waitemata Harbour and Hauraki Gulf. The 37th America's Cup match was just contested in Barcelona, Spain last week. Team NZ won again and this was the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron's fifth America's Cup victory as a club, following its wins in 1995, 2000, 2017, 2021 and 2024. This makes it the most successful club in the competition over the last 30 years. Their skipper, Pete Burling, is pictured above.
Let us look back for a minute: In 2013 the America's Cup defenders were Team USA. The event took place at the Golden Gate Yacht Club in San Francisco. Oracle Team USA came from 8-1 behind to beat the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron by 9 points to 8 in what was probably the greatest comeback in the history of sports competition, in any sport. In Bermuda four years later New Zealand got revenge, as they beat Team USA comprehensively 7-1. They then successfully defended the Cup in Auckland in 2021 and again this week in Spain. With the victory last week they are now the only team in modern history to win the Cup three consecutive times. Team NZ have solidified their place in history as one of the best teams to ever set sail.
The America's Cup is named after the winning boat "America," not after the USA or the continent itself. The America's cup is awarded to the winner of a series of sailing races between the current holder and a challenging yacht club. The America's Cup sailing competition typically takes place every three to four years, with the race course spanning approximately 1.7 nautical miles and 0.5–0.8 nautical miles wide. Teams alternate starting sides, with the right-side entrant holding an advantage. The first team to score a pre-agreed set number of points by winning individual races claims the America's Cup. So, there are only two sailboats competing in the finals itself. To get there as the prior winner is easy, that team is automatically included as the "defender". To get to be "challenger" is a process, however.
The challenger group this year was INEOS Britannia (Great Britain), Alinghi Red Bull Racing (Switzerland), Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Team (Italy), NYYC American Magic (Team USA), and Orient Express Racing Team (France). The preliminary regattas took place in Spain starting in September 2023 and culminated in the 2024 Louis Vuitton Cup Challenger Selection Series from August to October 7th this year. After a round robin, semis and Selection Series finals, Great Britain's team were selected as the challenger to take on NZ in the America's Cup final itself. It is worth noting that Team New Zealand did compete in the round robin stage of the Challenger Selection Series in Spain, but the results of their races were not included in the challenger leaderboard. This ensures that they are generally as familiar with the course and the conditions as their challenger would be when it came to the finals.
The 37th edition of the America’s Cup started on October 12th this year and would be decided in a best of 13 format between Team NZ and Team GB, i.e. first team to win 7 races takes the trophy. On October 19, 2024, on the sixth day of the Match, defender Team New Zealand secured the trophy with a victory over Challenger of Record, INEOS Britannia. The races themselves ebbed and flowed from the outset, and it was a thrilling display of skill and strategy, with both teams pushing each other to the limit. [See the 20 minute highlights video at the bottom of this page for some of the action]. In the end, Team NZ's superior boat speed and tactical acumen proved to be the difference. Winning the Cup again is a quite a feat for a country a fraction of the size of some of its biggest ocean-going rivals.
The AC75 yachts have two helmsmen, for Team NZ one was Nathan Outerridge and the other Pete Burling, who is unquestionable star of the team. Burling is a world champion sailor, an Olympic gold medalist, and is the youngest ever Olympic gold medallist in sailing. Last week he became only the second helmsman ever to win three America's Cups in consecutive contests after Harold Vanderbilt (1930, 1934 & 1937). He was already also the youngest skipper to win an America's Cup. During his first victory for Team NZ in 2017 he was only 26 years old. Burling was born in 1991 in Tauranga, New Zealand. His education began at Welcome Bay School and Tauranga Intermediate School. He started sailing at the age of six in the Welcome Bay estuary near his home in Tauranga, in an old wooden Optimist called Jellytip. At the age of eight, he joined Tauranga Yacht Club and started sailing competitively.
But Burling is just one man, and this is a team sport. And New Zealand is a small country, so how do they maintain a fair competition against their larger opponents one may wonder? Well, the rules of the game were set in the 1850's and recorded in a document known as the "Deed of Gift of the America's Cup". The Deed of Gift of the America's Cup is a document that outlines the rules and regulations governing the America's Cup sailing competition. It was created in 1851 by the Royal Yacht Squadron, the club that owned the America's Cup at the time. The Royal Yacht Squadron is based on the Isle of Wight in the UK and is the site of the very first America's Cup race.
The Deed of Gift, like any country's constitution, is the foundation upon which the competition is built. It defines the terms of the challenge for the America's Cup, including which team is entitled to defend the trophy against any challenger and how that series of races between the defender and the challenger will happen. The Deed of Gift also specifies that the America's Cup must be defended against any challenger, regardless of the challenger's nationality or the size of their yacht. This has helped to ensure that the America's Cup remains a prestigious and international competition and is open to any and all nations.
The next (38th) America's Cup races happen in four years from now. The venue may be Spain or New Zealand again, but there is a good chance the competition will be held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The venue may be a mystery to many (it is a stop on the SailGP tour), and the final boast specs are unknown, and many of the rules will be challenged and litigated and possibly changed, but the basics of the competition are not. The 38th America's Cup, like all of those before it, will be a match-race series between the defender team of Emirates Team New Zealand representing the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron. Their challenger will be the Royal Yacht Squadron represented by INEOS Britannia, or whichever other team beats them in the Selection Series races. But tradition requires that the captain of the losing team "throw down" a challenge immediately after the conclusion of the final race. Ben Ainslie, Team Principal and Skipper of INEOS Britannia, apparently accepted the responsibility and challenged Pete Burling and Team NZ to another race for the Cup.
So, these guys have plenty of time to do post-match analysis and work on the boat, the strategy, the team, etc. Until then, many of these athletes can be seen on the SailGP series where they hone their skills in anticipation of going head to head again in an America's Cup race in 4 years time. Pete Burling is also skipper of Team NZ in the SailGP series, so you can see him in action regularly. Ben Ainslie's days on the water may be over, as he has stepped back from being on the boat. He is still CEO of Team GB for the SailGP series, but being on land will allow him to focus on the team’s overall performance on and off the water, and get them battle-ready. So, expect this team to make a strong showing in the America's Cup next time around. Someone's got to give Team NZ a run for their money.
