Ashby sets sail with French team for Cup
Team New Zealand great Glenn Ashby will make an unexpected return to the America’s Cup but with a rival boat.
Ashby has joined French challenger Orient Express Racing in an advisory role for this year’s Cup campaign in Barcelona.
Orient Express is one of two new challengers, as well as the Swiss syndicate Alinghi, competing in the Cup’s 37th cycle and is the first French boat since Groupama Team France raced in Bermuda in 2017.
Not much is expected of Orient Express, who last sailed in the Cup as Areva Challenge in the 2007 challenger series in Valencia.
Someone of Ashby’s vast experience will be welcomed aboard. The 46-year-old Australian might have finished his competitive sailing career after winning the Cup with American syndicate Oracle, in 2010, then twice in starring roles with Team NZ, in 2017 and 2021.
“My role is very much a helicopter view from the outside, looking in. I’m spending time with the sailing team, helping them learn about the AC75 and the LEQ [testing boat], talking about the physics,” Ashby said.
Ashby’s last America’s Cup race was the Auckland decider in 2021 against Italian team Luna Rossa, when he was a trimmer, four years after skippering the Kiwis to their victory in Bermuda.
A comeback to match racing seems highly unlikely. Ashby told Stuff last year that he was content with his Cup career and that 2021 final was his last race after making “a pact to myself’’.
He returned home to Australia and said he had been working on other projects “with wheels”, such as the wind-assisted world land speed record set by Team NZ last year in South Australia.
Piloting their land yacht Horonuku, Ashby extended Team NZ’s record from 222.43kph to 225.58kph.
Ashby’s return to the Cup solidifies a French connection with Team NZ, who already offered design help in the build of their AC75 match boat.
The Cup syndicates are only weeks away from unveiling the AC75s they will race in Barcelona. Orient Express are still testing with their half-scale AC40 in Barcelona and could be one of the last teams to launch their larger Cup boat as they’re revealed one by one in April.
How competitive the French might be won’t become clear until sailing resumes with the third preliminary regatta in Barcelona on August 22.
Co-helmed by Quentin Delapierre and Kevin Peponnet, they will be racing the other syndicates for the right to face Team NZ once the challenger series starts a week later.
Team NZ will also feature in the round robin of the challenger series between August 29 and September 11, albeit with their racing points not counting.
They will face the top challenger in the Cup’s match race when defending the Auld Mug from October 12-21.