Crunch time arrives for SailGP and the America's Cup
by Richard Gladwell/Sail-World NZ 23 Jan 03:33 PST
24 January 2026
SailGP fans arrive at the SailGP Race Stadium ahead of the action on Race Day 1 Oracle Perth Sail Grand Prix - January 17, 2026 - Fremantle © Travis Hayto/SailGP
While the rain hammered down outside, and the gales blew, on Wednesday a slew of sailing announcements made for a much brighter sailing scene in Auckland.
Early on Wednesday morning, came the great news that Auckland will once again be a stopover in The Ocean Race - the crewed round the world race sailed in the semi-foiling IMOCA 60fters.
It will be the 12th time that the Whitbread/Volvo Ocean Race, and now The Ocean Race, will stop over in Auckland. This is the second edition of The Ocean Race. The 2021 Race was rescheduled to 2022/23 due to the Covid pandemic, bypassing Auckland and its propensity for Lockdowns.
That race sailed a massive 12,750 nautical mile leg that started in Cape Town and finished in Itajaí, Brazil.
That ploy has been taken a step further in the 2027 race, which gets under way from Alicante on January 17, and the fleet is expected in Auckland a month later, with a three-week stopover before heading into the Southern Ocean, with the next stop Itajai, Brazil.
At first glance, the course has been reduced dramatically in terms of stopovers, with just Alicante, Spain; Auckland, New Zealand; Itajai, Brazil; and Red Sea, Amaala.
However, in its release, The Ocean Race makes it clear that other stopovers will be added, so expect some changes.
Also on Wednesday, Emirates Airline announced it would be extending its 20-year backing of Team NZ, but the period was not specified. One would expect it to run through the next Cup cycle and into the latter part of 2027.
This is one of the longest sponsorships in sport, and the America's Cup.
Also Wednesday, the former 2024 British America's Cup team INEOS Britannia announced its reincarnation. After a very public divorce, the team reverted to Athena Racing. Now, according to the media release, it will be known by the "bold" name of GB1.
Certainly, GB1 rolls off the tongue more easily than INEOS Britannia. But it would seem to be a holding position until a new naming rights sponsor can be found.
Late Wednesday night, NZT, the America's Cup Partnership was formally anointed at Palazzo Reale di Napoli.
Last week, Cagliari, Sardinia, jumped the gun, announcing that it would host the first Preliminary Event from 21 to 24 May 2026.
The dates of the other two Preliminary Events were expected to be announced on Wednesday at the Palazzo Reale, but nothing was forthcoming. Indeed, we don't know if there will be any preliminary event using the recycled AC75s, and all three will be sailed in the AC40s.
"Several venues interested" was the reported response to questions about other events, which is Cup-speak that a bidding war may be under way, or they are trying to start one.
Italian media later alluded to two more events being held in 2027 in Naples ahead of the America's Cup.
The Match dates of July 10-18, 2027 clash with several other major sailing events which will already be underway, by the start of the Louis Vuitton Cup through to the end of the America's Cup.
The Ocean Race starts on January 17, and leaves Auckland in mid-March, heading into the Southern Ocean with a likely finish in the Red Sea in June/July 2027 running across the opening rounds of an extended Louis Vuitton Cup. Sail GP (15 teams and probably events) starting in January. The calendar for SailGP's Season 7/2027 is not yet published, however in the likely period of 2027 Cup events, on the basis of the Season 6 calendar, SailGP will be on its "Circuit of the America's", starting on May 10 and doing four events ending on June 22 before going to Portsmouth in July. The already announced 2027 Admiral's Cup, starts on July 16 and runs through to July 28. The Rolex Fastnet Race starts on July 24 - the 2025 event attracted a fleet of around 450 boats, including several of the massive Ultim 105ft foiling multihulls and several 100ft supermaxis.
Outside the teams and Italian politicians, interest in the Cup appears to be fading fast, and SailGP is foiling into the vacated media space.
After the conclusion of the 2024 Cup in Barcelona, ETNZ CEO, and then Event CEO, Grant Dalton, said he wanted to be sailing again in AC40s a few months later in February 2025.
That's what should have happened, and would have got the 38th Cup off to a solid start. But for various reasons that opportunity has long gone. Instead, the AC40 racing has been replaced with a series of corporate press releases and a couple of media conferences to announce the Protocol and the birth of the still-secret America's Cup Partnership.
Meanwhile, the SailGP League raced its F50 fleet through the backend of 2024, right through 2025, and started Season 6 last weekend. From the end of the 2024 America's Cup to the last weekend's SailGP event in Freo, SailGP has sailed 13 events - at seven races per venue, that's 91 races. The America's Cup teams are yet to race, and won't do so for another four months.
The only glimpses we get of the America's Cup stars is at rallies for media and politicians, or in SailGP, which they use for race training.
Sailing out of Fremantle for the first time, with many fans remembering the action from America's Cup venue 40 years earlier, Oracle Perth SailGP picked up the action from where it paused after Stars & Stripes' win in 1986/87. After some action-packed training sessions, SailGP raised fans' adrenaline levels back to where they were after the 26th America's Cup.
America's Cup teams maintain they are using a different business model than the SailGP League, which they claim is just run by two men. The reality is that both events are operating in the corporate sports market. Many of the sailors are competing in both events, though that situation has been short-lived for some as the clash between the two events enters a new phase.
Several sailors have had to choose between the two events, with some negotiating absences from occasionally uncompromising team bosses. Others have not been so fortunate.
Fremantle was a spectacular SailGP venue, with plenty of breeze - underlining once again that wind is an essential requirement for good racing. From a fans perspective, there is a big difference between watching foiling boats racing in a 5kt breeze venue like the SailGP Grand Final venue of Abu Dhabi and one of Fremantle's 15-20kts.
The latter translates into top speeds reaching up to 50kts and grabs the attention of the non-sailing fans, who like watching any high-speed sport.
One of the two men behind SailGP is software billionaire and longtime sailor Larry Ellison, whose business strategies are to grow, acquire, or crush. His executioner is the ruthless five-time Cup winner, Russell Coutts. Currently, SailGP appears to be in crush mode - a task made much easier with the America's Cup excusing itself from any racing for about 18months.
The America's Cup has been slow to respond to the SailGP challenge and from Wednesday's missive, out of Palazzo Reale di Napoli, quoting numerous politicians, the Cup seems set to continue its pedestrian pace.
They should be sprinting.
The French and British America's Cup teams, are keeping their options open. Both are also running teams in Larry's League.
Unsurprisingly, the business model that some teams will operate, in the much vaunted America's Cup Partnership, looks to be similar to what they have in SailGP - shareholdings and equity splits with A-Listers and others, who want to buy into a sports team. The days of billionaire funders seem to be over.
ACP is said to offer long-term sponsorship opportunities, but one wonders if the former AC model was really that broken.
Emirates Airline has just renewed a 20-year sponsorship with Team New Zealand. Two other long-term sponsors, Toyota and Omega, are back on the team's two AC40s. Both those sponsors go back even earlier than Emirates - into the Peter Blake era. No-one has ever answered the question as to why the Kiwi team has been able to survive and win five America's Cups in over 40 years, yet the Cup rules need constant easing to make the Cup more winnable.
Heading into 2027, remains to be seen whether there is room in the Corporate Sports market for both the America's Cup and SailGP "products". Advocates of "more market" believe there is space for both, although quite how that works out remains to be seen.
Currently, for the Cup, the optics are not good: recycled boats, fewer teams than in 2024, no new teams, as yet no American entry, and an incomplete racing schedule.
SailGP has dominated the Sail-World story rankings over the past week, getting fan following at similar levels or higher than the America's Cup at its peak of competition.
The most popular story, despite only being online for 30 hours, is the view from UmpApp of the collision between the Black Foils and the Switzerland SailGP Team. While the Swiss were sailing on Sunday, the loss of a large chunk of their port hull meant the Kiwis had only about 90 seconds of racing at Freo.
It remains to be seen if the Black Foils and the Spanish team are sailing again in Auckland. As can be seen in the images in this story in the images in this story the damage is substantial to both boats, and will be challenging for the SailGP support team, whose miracles are too often taken for granted.
Will SailGP's momentum from Freo continue into the next events in Auckland and onto Sydney? We'll know in a few weeks.
You can follow all the racing and developments in major and local events on www.sail-world.com/nz or by scrolling to the top of the site, select New Zealand, and get all the latest news and updates from the sailing world.
Good sailing!
Richard Gladwell
NZ Editor
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