173 years…

I have followed our unfulfilled attempts to win the America’s Cup for most of my life and, for those that don’t know, we originally lost it to the Americans over 173 years ago and we have never won it back. In the meantime, it has been won by the Australians, New Zealanders and even the Swiss. It is the oldest international competition still operating in any sport .

The British team had a stilted campaign in New Zealand at the last running of the America’s Cup series in 2021 when it was retained by the Kiwis after a race off against the Italians who had beaten us in the final of the challenger selection series.

NZ decided to auction the location of the defence of the cup, and the hosting rights were claimed by Barcelona. It is going on right now – and it is (in my opinion) fascinating.

The format is that the challengers race off against each other in a series of races to decide which yacht/nation should go ‘head-to-head’ against the holders in a ‘match race’ final. Match racing is probably the purest and most demanding form of racing with just two yachts pitted against each other. Needless to say, the America’s Cup (named after the first yacht to win it, ‘America’ in 1851) has attracted big money sponsorship, and it bears no resemblance to traditional sailing with high tech, carbon fibre, 75-foot foiling machines sailing at up to 50mph. Modern film coverage has made it very dramatic and with computer graphics, it has become much more accessible and easier to understand. It is compelling viewing!

The British entry is ‘INEOS Britannia’ and is skippered by multiple Olympic gold medallist, Sir Ben Ainslie. It is funded by billionaire industrialist, Sir Jim Ratcliffe who is a big sports fan and is part owner of Manchester United and the Mercedes Formula one team. The Britannia design team has a base in the F1 team headquarters in Brackley, applying their aerodynamics skills to hydrodynamics. Sir Jim is a controversial character, moving to Monaco immediately after he was knighted and championing Brexit, then choosing to manufacture his off road 4×4 vehicle, ‘Grenadier’ in France.

So, the preliminary ‘round robin’ series comprised 6 yachts, from Britain, France, America, Switzerland and Italy with New Zealand initially joining in. The series whittled the field down to 4 yachts which would then race off in semi-finals and then the final of the Louis Vuitton challenger selection series to determine the right to race against the Kiwis for the actual America’s Cup, starting on the 12^th of October. NZ took part in the initial round robin series to hone their racing skills against their likely opponents then dropped out, so the country/yacht that came last which was the French yacht, was eliminated from the event. After a shaky start, INEOS Britannia, won through to win the series which entitled them to choose their opponents for the semi-finals. They selected the Swiss team (Alinghi Red Bull Racing) and, so far, Britannia are 4-0 up in the series, needing only one more race win to secure a place in the challenger selection final. They have progressively improved and they are currently looking very fast and slick. The other semi-final is between the Americans and the Italians, and it is currently 4-0 to the Italians. So, the race off to decide who faces the New Zealanders in the final is likely to be between Britain and our nemesis from the last running of the cup, Italy.

I am watching it all unfold on TNT Sport (formerly BT Sport) but I understand it can be watched on a number of platforms including YouTube.

I recommend that you take a look, you are likely to enjoy it, history may be in the making…