Teams line up for America’s Cup challenge
A little like the oft-heard complaint about British buses – that you wait for ages for one to arrive and then several come along at once – a flurry of no less than eight America’s Cup challenges were received on the last day of the late entry deadline in November, writes Justin Chisholm.
Two of the eight were quickly accepted as valid challenges by the current America’s Cup holders, Emirates Team New Zealand and the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron. Malta Altus Challenge from Malta and Stars & Stripes Team USA are now official, but there has been no word since on the status of the other six teams.
Both the newly accepted challengers have shortened their development processes by purchasing turnkey boat design packages from Emirates Team New Zealand. Of the two, it is the American team representing California’s Long Beach Yacht Club and led by match racing duo Taylor Canfield and Mike Buckley that appears the furthest advanced.
Malta Altus Challenge’s principal, Pasquale Cataldi, an Italian-born businessman based in Malta, is yet to announce details about the sailing team line-up, although it is widely believed that British Olympic Gold and Silver medallist Iain Percy has been earmarked to lead the Royal Malta Yacht Club campaign.
Cataldi is clearly deadly serious about someday turning the diminutive island nation of Malta into an America’s Cup powerhouse. “Our goal is to do three editions of the America’s Cup,” he said. “I think everyone in this edition is in it for the long-term. We have a new class, so the game is level for everybody, and the differences are not so much.”
Meanwhile, Canfield and Buckley have been pressing ahead in the US. They have a solid management structure in place and have already begun construction of their first of two planned AC75 race boats at a facility in Michigan.
The pair aim to mount a fiercely all-american challenge and went to four-time America’s Cup-winning skipper Dennis Conner to get his permission to borrow the Stars & Stripes name from his two successful campaigns with the San Diego Yacht Club in the 1980s.
Taylor Canfield is one of the hottest match racing talents on the planet right now, having won the World Match Racing Tour in 2013 and four Congressional Cups, and he firmly believes his team will be a force to be reckoned with when racing begins on the Hauraki Gulf at the Prada Cup Challenger Series in 2021.
“I think this will be the defining moment for American sailing,” Canfield said. “It has been my professional goal to compete in the America’s Cup my whole life and I am confident we will be very competitive in Auckland.”
As for the other possible challengers, there has been plenty of speculation as to who the other syndicates might be. Possible candidates include another two Italian syndicates,
Columbus 2021 from Imperia, and Adelasia di Torres from Sardinia; a Dutch team from the Royal Netherlands and Royal Maas Yacht Clubs headed by double America’s Cup winner Simeon Tienpont; a fledgling Norwegian squad cofounded by professional sailors Petter Mørland Pedersen and Christian Løken; and a Chinese syndicate set up by double America’s Cup winner Craig Monk.
The number of late submissions came as a surprise to most people and raised the prospect of a bumper-sized 13-team America’s Cup being fought out in Auckland in 2021.
As exciting as that sounds, though, it is unrealistic to imagine all six of the teams currently going through the vetting process by Emirates Team New Zealand and Challenger of Record Luna Rossa will be approved to join the Italians and fellow challengers New York YC’S American Magic and Britain’s INEOS Team UK.