America’s Cup: Australians get a head start with “new” AC75

America’s Cup: Australians get a head start with “new” AC75
by Richard Gladwell Sail-World NZ 15 May 07:55 PDT
16 May 2026

While the newly minted Australian America’s Cup Challenge claim they are still in the “mustering” phase of their campaign, they do start a lot further down the runway than many would give them credit.

At this stage, the Australians will be the only team sailing with an AC75, which raced in the Auckland-hosted America’s Cup cycle.

Most will expect that they, unlike Alinghi in the last Cup cycle, will be classified as a New Team. That entitles them to 20 extra sailing days, and not having to use any “legacy” gear from the last Cup cycle.

As skipper Tom Slingsby told Bow Caddy Media’s Crosbie Lorimer after the official launch at the Royal Prince Edward Yacht Club on Thursday:

“We’ll have a new rig, we’ll have new sails, we’ll have new foils, foil arms. We’ll have all-new control systems, all our foils and flight control units, and everything will be updated. So it really is just the shell of the hull, and we’re also modifying that, too.

“Being an older boat, not from the 2024 Cup, we’re allowed to modify it below the deck, and so the shape will be slightly different to what it is now. And then we’re also modifying the deck to make it rule-compliant and have the right amount of cockpits and the right layout for this upcoming America’s Cup. So there’s a lot of changes happening, and there’s a lot of work to be done.”

“It’s all beginning”, he added.

The word “new” has multiple meanings in the hundreds of pages of Protocol, Class Rules, and Technical Regulations. “New” and “Veteran” competitors have different allowances on the use of legacy gear and designs.

With a design partnership with Emirates Team NZ, the Australians have cut the corner on building a design team, software tools, and know-how, drawing on the Kiwis’ 40 years of continuous America’s Cup experience.

The “new” Australian AC75, the 2021 America’s Cup winner, is in bits and getting a birthday in more ways than one, in the Emirates Team NZ build facility in Glenfield, 20 minutes from the team base in Auckland’s Jellicoe Harbour.

The new Team Australia comes with a well-established SailGP team, the Bonds Flying Roos – the most successful team in the League’s six-season history.

Only two other America’s Cup teams – Great Britain and France – have close ties with SailGP teams, which allow crew combinations to be worked up in a competitive racing situation in foilers across 14 events in 12 months.

“It actually works really well as a sailor,” Slingsby said of the interplay between SailGP and the America’s Cup. “In previous America’s Cups, it’s been tough because you just don’t get much racing.

“You can train all day, every day, but you don’t get that race experience.

“Whereas SailGP is pure racing.

“We rock up at the venue. We get an hour-long training session on Friday, and then we’re into two days of racing, and then we leave.

“You get that race training at a very, very high level with Sail GP. And then we come back, and we join our America’s Cup team. I think both will complement each other, and the racing in this America’s Cup will definitely benefit from all these athletes competing in SailGP.”

Slingsby says the team will launch their AC75 “in March”, but doesn’t say where.

The only dates publicly announced for the 2027 America’s Cup are the Match dates of July 10-18, 2027. Based on the 2024 America’s Cup dates, the race schedule will be two months, maybe longer.

Our calculations, based on 2024 timings, indicate that the teams need to be sailing in Naples in early March for the Final Preliminary Regatta, raced in AC75s, and for the start of the Louis Vuitton Cup, projected for May 1.

It was a 28-day voyage from Tauranga to Barcelona for the 2024 America’s Cup. Factor in three weeks for packout and transportation to Tauranga, and there’s not much sailing left in 2027, in Auckland. Of course, those timings can be compressed. But unlike the Kiwis, the Australians have to get through a knockout/sudden-death Challenger Selection Series, in Naples.

As Defenders, Emirates Team NZ are straight into the Match.

France, the first team eliminated in the 2024 America’s Cup regattas, enjoyed just nine days of racing. Life can be very short for an America’s Cup Challenger.

On this basis, we expect the ANZAC teams to be sailing in Auckland sometime in October 2026.

In the interim, the Australians have a lot of work ahead to complete their “mustering”, as CEO Grant Simmer put it at the media conference at Royal Prince Edward YC.

Simmer now on his 13th America’s Cup campaign, is responsible for the team management. Three-time America’s Cup winner Glenn Ashby, is managing design and performance.

Skipper-designate Tom Slingsby rounds out the trio.

With three America’s Cups and one win to his credit, Slingsby indicated that the decision to Challenge had been taken 18 months previously after a meeting with Team Principal John Winning. It is hard to believe that the Australians have been sitting on their hands since then, despite the Code of Silence they have been able to impose on the Chattering Classes and some of the Sailing Paparazzi.

As well as getting their sailing team into an AC75 simulator, if they have not already done so, the Australians desperately need one, preferably two AC40s, both for crew training and as test boats.

In the 2024 Youth and Womens America’s Cups, the two Australian teams sailed borrowed AC40s. The feisty foiling 40fters are not easy to acquire, and it may be that the Australians have to come to an accommodation with the Kiwis, who will race two AC40 crews in the first Preliminary Regatta in Cagliari, next week.

For those interested in the nitty-gritty of the America’s Cup Rules, the new 2.7 metre bow section required to comply with the Constructed in Country requirements of the Protocol is currently being built in Australia. It will be freighted to Auckland and laminated to the existing hull later this month – all of which points to a launch date of several months earlier than early March 2027 in Naples. The new bow must be to the exact design and specification of the one it replaces, under the arcane Constructed-in-Country rules applicable to new teams. Team Australia is the only one of the seven entered teams affected by this bow-switcheroo requirement.

They do have sailing days to burn with 45 available until mid-January 2027, plus an additional 20 days as a New Team. They get a second allocation of 45 days starting in mid-January 2027 and running through to the end of the Cup Match.

While the Australians might be off to a late start, several other teams are in the same position, and thanks to their Trans-Tasman partnership, Team Australia should avoid the usual start-up mistakes. However, time is of the essence, and they have to pick up their pace to avoid an early exit in Naples – now less than a year away.