Fifteen teams already confirmed for 2021 Youth America's Cup after early entry period closes

by Andrew Delves 6 Mar 2020 04:09 PST 7 March 2020

AC9F - Yachting Devlopments © Andrew Delves

There are now only a handful of entry spaces left available for the 2021 Youth America's Cup after the initial early entry period closed on the 29th of February.

The Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron is delighted to announce that fifteen teams from twelve nations all over the world have already officially entered into the 2021 Youth America's Cup.

Nations with their representative yacht clubs who have entered teams are as follows:

New Zealand (2)
Australia (2)
Switzerland (2)
Netherlands
Russia
Argentina
Hong Kong
China
Denmark
Germany
Spain
USA

It is important to note that entry is still open for this event right up until the 30th September 2020; although subject to any space still available at that point. Due to such high demand early on the RNZYS are encouraging any other clubs who are considering an entry to get this in as soon as possible.

RNZYS CEO Hayden Porter is pleased with the entries received so far, and is keen to see more clubs put their names forward in the coming months.

"I am blown away by the interest to date and given the conversations we are still having with a number of clubs especially in Europe and the UK I am sure this will be fully subscribed soon. Once people also see the AC9F sailing the global interest level will step up a notch again. Being an event with gender equality at the forefront of our thinking has also proven to be popular and something that was important to us from the start. The melting pot of nations coming will also have a big economic impact for New Zealand and Auckland in particular, with many teams planning to base themselves here from the middle of this year to prepare and train for the event."

The first AC9F, built out of Yachting Developments is being launched next week for testing. Yachting Developments owner and RNZYS Commodore Ian Cook is excited to see how the boat performs in initial testing.

"A lot of hard work has gone into the design and build of this first one, so to finally have it going into the water is an exciting prospect. We are very interested to see how it performs and moving on to build the rest of the fleet."

With the AC9F now almost a reality, and the amount of clubs already on the entry list, the RNZYS is confident the event will be a success in 2021.