The announcement of SailGP’s Season 5 racing schedule and venues, along with the publication latest edition of video ‘Racing on the Edge’ reveals plenty on the shape and momentum of the professional sailing league.

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With the shared recon program coming to an end on June 22, the teams for the 37th America’s Cup now enter a ‘dark’ period of reconnaissance where they will look to bring on the innovations, the technology, and the break-throughs that will ultimately determine their campaign’s fate.

Only one team can win; there really is no second in the America’s Cup but there are clear pointers as to who should perform well and what we can expect when racing starts at the third Preliminary Regatta at the end of August ahead of the Louis Vuitton Cup starting in earnest in September.

This report will review each team’s campaign progress and look at the positives and negatives of their assault on the world’s premier sailing trophy: click here

Following the publication of the AC37 Protocol and AC75 Class Rule on November 17, 2021, the AC75 Class Rule and AC Technical Regulations were finalized on March 17, 2022. The entry period was from December 1, 2021 until July 31, 2022, but late entries for the 37th America’s Cup could be accepted until May 31, 2023. The Defender was to announce the Match Venue on September 17, 2021 but postponed the reveal, finally confirming Barcelona on March 30, 2022. The 37th America’s Cup begins October 12, 2024.

Teams revealed to challenge defender Emirates Team New Zealand (NZL):
• INEOS Britannia (GBR)
• Alinghi Red Bull Racing (SUI)
• Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Team (ITA)
• NYYC American Magic (USA)
• Orient Express Racing Team (FRA)

2023-24 Preliminary Regattas
September 14-17, 2023 (AC40): Vilanova i la Geltrú, Spain
November 30-December 2 (AC40): Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
August 22-25, 2024 (AC75): Barcelona, Spain

2024 Challenger Selection Series
August 29-September 8: Double Round Robin
September 14-19: Semi Finals (Best of 9)
September 26-October 7: Finals (Best of 13)

2024 America’s Cup
October 12-21: 37th Match (Best of 13)

Additionally, 12 teams will compete in the 2024 Youth & Women’s America’s Cup.

Noticeboard: https://ac37noticeboard.acofficials.org/
Event details: www.americascup.com/en/home

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Cup Spy: June 13 – Swiss drop rig

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The value of hosting the America’s Cup is not easy math, as the advance forecast is typically full of optimism while the post-event calculation has led to debt and drama. Here’s an excerpt on the topic from the New Zealand Herald:

In less than three months, the America’s Cup regatta will descend on Barcelona with a big payday forecast for the region that Auckland will miss out on.

When racing commences, it will cap off a years-long period expected to have a positive economic impact of €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion US) for Barcelona, according to a report commissioned and undertaken by the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in May 2023.

By comparison, New Zealand’s economy was left $2.9 million NZ (1.8 million US) worse off from hosting the 36th America’s Cup in 2021, an official cost-benefit report revealed. – Full report

Following the publication of the AC37 Protocol and AC75 Class Rule on November 17, 2021, the AC75 Class Rule and AC Technical Regulations were finalized on March 17, 2022. The entry period was from December 1, 2021 until July 31, 2022, but late entries for the 37th America’s Cup could be accepted until May 31, 2023. The Defender was to announce the Match Venue on September 17, 2021 but postponed the reveal, finally confirming Barcelona on March 30, 2022. The 37th America’s Cup begins October 12, 2024.

Teams revealed to challenge defender Emirates Team New Zealand (NZL):
• INEOS Britannia (GBR)
• Alinghi Red Bull Racing (SUI)
• Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Team (ITA)
• NYYC American Magic (USA)
• Orient Express Racing Team (FRA)

2023-24 Preliminary Regattas
September 14-17, 2023 (AC40): Vilanova i la Geltrú, Spain
November 30-December 2 (AC40): Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
August 22-25, 2024 (AC75): Barcelona, Spain

2024 Challenger Selection Series
August 29-September 8: Double Round Robin
September 14-19: Semi Finals (Best of 9)
September 26-October 7: Finals (Best of 13)

2024 America’s Cup
October 12-21: 37th Match (Best of 13)

For more schedule details, click here.
Additionally, 12 teams will compete in the 2024 Youth & Women’s America’s Cup.

Noticeboard: https://ac37noticeboard.acofficials.org/
Additional details: www.americascup.com/en/home

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Three hundred Finn Masters can’t be wrong when they all head to the same venue. The 2024 Finn World Masters begins next week at the Puntala Camp & Resort beside the Tyrrhenian Sea sea, 13 years after it was last held there.

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Following the lead by Scuttlebutt Sailing News in celebrating the House Drinks in the sport, the 37th America’s Cup now has its official cocktail too. Called the Copa America, it was created by a group of cocktail bars in Barcelona, a region which apparently ranks in the Top 10 cities with the best cocktail bars in the world.

The Copa América includes Bacardí Carta Blanca, salted honey cordial with thyme, Appletiser, Alquimia ratafia, smoked with rosemary, and is served with a gastronomic apple and tajín snack.

The drink was created in collaboration with six bars, representing the same number of teams participating in the main America’s Cup competition, and can be found at 30 venues.

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Around 40 activists blocked entry to the America’s Cup official store on Wednesday (June 5) to complain about the sailing competition, but also what they consider large projects that “break up the territory.”

The block was promoted by several pro-environmental organizations, such as Futuro Vegetal, End Fossil, Arran, and Fridays for Future, in coordination with the ‘No a la Copa Amèrica’ platform. The event was scheduled ahead of an environmental demonstration in Barcelona on June 8.

Some activists blocked the store’s entry door for around two hours, while others were already inside. Those outside hold a poster reading ‘Let’s finish with capitalism, and save our planet!’ while chanting ‘America’s Cup is killing our neighborhoods.’ – Full report

Following the publication of the AC37 Protocol and AC75 Class Rule on November 17, 2021, the AC75 Class Rule and AC Technical Regulations were finalized on March 17, 2022. The entry period was from December 1, 2021 until July 31, 2022, but late entries for the 37th America’s Cup could be accepted until May 31, 2023. The Defender was to announce the Match Venue on September 17, 2021 but postponed the reveal, finally confirming Barcelona on March 30, 2022. The 37th America’s Cup begins October 12, 2024.

Teams revealed to challenge defender Emirates Team New Zealand (NZL):
• INEOS Britannia (GBR)
• Alinghi Red Bull Racing (SUI)
• Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Team (ITA)
• NYYC American Magic (USA)
• Orient Express Racing Team (FRA)

2023-24 Preliminary Regattas
September 14-17, 2023 (AC40): Vilanova i la Geltrú, Spain
November 30-December 2 (AC40): Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
August 22-25, 2024 (AC75): Barcelona, Spain

2024 Challenger Selection Series
August 29-September 8: Double Round Robin
September 14-19: Semi Finals (Best of 9)
September 26-October 7: Finals (Best of 13)

2024 America’s Cup
October 12-21: 37th Match (Best of 13)

For more schedule details, click here.
Additionally, 12 teams will compete in the 2024 Youth & Women’s America’s Cup.

Noticeboard: https://ac37noticeboard.acofficials.org/
Additional details: www.americascup.com/en/home

Read more on Scuttlebutt

Four teams teams sailed on Wednesday in the congested waters off Barcelona in ideal foiling conditions. All teams conducted similar sessions focussed around racing drills, with the chase boats being used to provide a competitive edge to the training.

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Italian Challenger Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli made their grand entrance onto the 2024 America’s Cup stage in Barcelona, today, sailing a three hour session in moderate winds, without incident. The Kiwis were not so fortunate in the AC40s…

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The US and British teams sailed on Thursday in a session that was not hugely productive in actual sailing time compared to time on the water. The issue lay in a storm – with thunder and lightning – that didn’t hit the teams, but certainly affected them.

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First to foil a Giant multihull around the world, Charles Caudrelier has moved the bar in offshore racing. Helen Fretter finds out how he got there:

It would be a scene worthy of the most outrageous Hollywood action movie: a man, alone on an enormous flying trimaran, is hurtling across the ocean’s remotest reaches, when he plunges through the floor of the cockpit. He dangles, metres above the churning waves – with no way of calling for help – until he manages to haul himself back on board. Then he dusts himself off, and keeps racing. But Charles Caudrelier barely mentions it.

“You had some wave damage?” I ask during our chat about the Arkea Ultim Challenge Brest, the solo around the world race in 100ft foiling Ultims.

“Oh, yes. Before Cape Horn, I caught some 7m waves and with the wind churning and the waves coming off a front for a few hours that was quite uncomfortable. A wave onto the back of the boat hit the deck, so I had a big hole in my boat. That was quite difficult, because you feel safe in your cockpit and then suddenly your cockpit is open and you can see water” – Full report

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American Magic rolled out their new AC75 at 5.45am on Tuesday, with the first set of slightly asymmetric race foils, rudder and rig all in place and revealing an interesting deck layout putting the helms and trimmers side by side and well forward.

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New York, NY (May 6, 2024) – French skipper Yoann Richomme made it two back-to-back solo Transatlantic wins today when he brought his IMOCA 60 PAPREC ARKÉA across the finish line first on the historic Transat CIC race across the North Atlantic from Lorient in Brittany to New York.

Richomme on his Finot Conq-Antoine Koch designed PAPREC ARKÉA crossed the finish line of the 15th edition at 18:23:32 UTC (14:23:32 EDT) to conclude a very close battle with German skipper Boris Herrmann (Malizia Seaexplorer) who was less than 30 miles behind when he crossed. Richomme’S elapsed time for the 2,950 nautical miles course since leaving Lorient on April 28 was 8d 6h 53mn 32sec.

After winning his first ever solo IMOCA Transat, the Retour à La Base, a race from the Caribbean to Lorient in December, Richomme highlights again his outstanding potential for the solo non-stop round the world race, the 2024-25 Vendée Globe, which starts early November.

It is the first time since 2016 that this historic Transatlantic race, which originated in England in 1960 as the Observer Transatlantic Race, has been contested. Richomme, 40, follows up the success on that edition of Armel Le Cléac’h who then went on to win the 2016-17 Vendée Globe the following winter.

Richomme’s elapsed time bears some comparison with Le Cléach’s 12 days, at least in proving how much faster the latest generation of foiling IMOCAs are compared with Le Cléach’s Banque Populaire VIII which was one of the first ever IMOCAs with hydrofoils.

He was second for a big part of the race, chasing his long time rival Charlie Dalin (MACIF Santé et Prévoyance) who looked to be odds on to win on his return to solo racing after missing last Autumn’s two Transats with a medical issue.

But Richomme out-maneuvered him as they negotiated the north side of a nasty Atlantic depression whilst Dalin was reported to have suffered a technical problem which required him to stop for a few hours the following day.

The Frenchman – who was born in Fréjus but spent three and a half years at a tough public school near Philadelphia while his father was working there – is a renowned, data-driven perfectionist and is perfectly bilingual with a distinct US accent.

He has said in the past that staying on top of his target numbers all the time and living in his own bubble, sailing his own race, has been the passport to his key successes to date, winning the solo Route du Rhum twice in Class 40 and winning La Solitaire du Figaro twice.

After an outstanding win on his solo IMOCA debut last December, he told Yachting World magazine: “I am really in my own world, I don’t look at the others, a little bit now and again, but I am in my own world and then what works well is all the data analysis we do before to be able to have the right polars, to make the right decisions, to have the right sails. Yes, it is that digital thing, the numbers.

“Otherwise, if you do routings all the time and it shows you to go different ways, it messes you up. It is all about the work I do before that pays off in these races. And then the thing is it works, I am not making big mistakes. You cannot change a big gennaker twice in a day, as the next day you are dead. You need to make the right sail choices all the time and know what you are doing when, as otherwise you are going to f#ck up. You will never recover. All the learning curve from sailing the boat here, and analyzing the data and being able to use that on the race course, efficiently and not making mistakes is what makes it work.”

Since launching in February 2023, the successes of PAPREC ARKÉA have been striking as Richomme and Yann Eliès finished second in the Rolex Fastnet race and on the Transat Jacques Vabre Normandie Le Havre and now he adds victory on the ‘original’ fiercest ‘north face’ Transat to his growing list of accolades.

The key moment was on May 2 when he overtook Charlie Dalin (MACIF Santé Prévoyance) to the north who was visibly suffering from technical problems. Richomme echoes how winning cyclists know how to attack and deliver a blow as soon as the peloton seems to be running out of steam. When fatigue sets, he attacks with striking lucidity and composure.

“It is so good to win this crazy, hard, historic race which really launched ocean racing with the victory of Eric Tabarly and so on,” said Richomme after the finish. “So I am super proud to accomplish this and this is my first time arriving by sea into New York so now I can really look forwards to that.

“I am happy and proud of the work the team has done and winning two back to back Transats shows we are working well. I had a few little problems after the start, making choices with sails and some energy problems, but I made some good trajectories and am happy with the speed of the boat.

“I am proud of my course through the depression, we had a good race Charlie (Dalin) and I made good executions of my strategy. But everything is wet, wet through and it is difficult to contemplate two or three months living like that on the Vendée Globe. And the race with Boris was good too; he has a very fast boat downwind.”

Tentatively, the winning average speed over actual course sailed of 3293.55 miles was 14.83 knots, and the speed over the theoretical course was 16.56 knots.

Event details – Tracker – Facebook

Source: agence.rivacom.fr

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Since the start of the Beer Can Racing season is upon the yachting community, the question has been asked: When and where was the first beer can race held? While we profess to know a little about a lot, our archives are empty on this topic. If you know, send the details to editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com.

As for the history of the beer can itself, here is how it began:

Before Prohibition, the main vessels for consuming beer were bottles and glasses used to down draft suds. But Pabst and Anheuser-Busch knew there was a better way, so they attempted to engineer a functional beer can in the 1920s. Unfortunately, their plans fizzled in the wake of the 18th Amendment.

In the early 1930s, just before Prohibition was officially repealed, the American Can Company created a usable beer can prototype that New Jersey’s Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company tested with just 2000 cans of their Krueger’s Special Beer.

The 12-ounce cans offered the highest alcohol content possible at the time—3.2 percent—and received rave reviews from 91 percent of those dedicated drinkers who were invited to partake in the first batch, with the vast majority of them saying it tasted more like draft beer than its bottled counterpart (which was a good thing).

Given the production and shipping costs for heavy bottles, canned beer was financially smarter for breweries in the 1930s, too. Bottles were also returnable at the time, which not only added another shipping cost for breweries, but necessitated more man-power for inspection of whether or not a bottle was fit for reuse. Which is why the invention of the beer can was so revolutionary—and why it has an official holiday on the calendar (January 24). – Full report

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Two teams sailed today – one in Auckland and the other in Cagliari. American Magic gave an unexpected reveal today, when the US Challenger opened the shed door and saw daylight for the first time…

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The 76th Newport to Ensenada International Yacht Race will commence on April 26, 2024. The 125nm course from Newport Beach, CA to Ensenada, Mexico has long been a rite of passage for Southern California sailors, with the more recent option of an 88 nm course to San Diego, CA

The entry list has 164 boats going the full distance with 20 teams staying north of the international border.

The 2023 race saw better-than-expected winds at the start, but dropped overnight, making for very close racing by morning’s light. For 2024, the Windy.com app is suggesting that westerly winds will carry the fleet all the way to the finish.

The inaugural race was held in 1948, with a record 675 boats entered in 1983 to earn N2E the title of “World’s Largest International Yacht Race.”

Tom Siebel’s Orion, a MOD70 has held the multihull elapsed time record since 2016 when it broke an 18-year-old record with a time of 5:17:26. A new monohull elapsed time record was set in 2022 when Manouch Moshayedi’s custom RIO 100 crossed the finish line before sunset with a time of 7:02:17.

Trophies are awarded in more than 40 classes for the best in ultra-light and maxi-yachts and non-spinnaker and cruising classes.

Event Details – Entry List – Facebook

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The Race to Alaska will hold its 8th edition in 2024, continuing with its 750-mile course from Port Townsend, WA to Ketchikan, AK. And now there is a podcast series prior to the June 9 start. Featured in this episode are perhaps the two most different teams in pursuit of glory:

Team Stranger Danger
Yet another team only shaking hands for the first time just days before race start, meet Stranger Danger—riding high aboard their Schock 40 until the keel probably falls off. Oh, and Katy Stewart is back, if that means anything to anybody.

Team Barely Heumann
The internet got a collective brain freeze when a randomly posted photo of Jim Heumann’s Nauticraft Escapade was posted to the R2AK social media landscape. Why does Jim think this is a good idea? Hear the answer from him

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