America's Cup: Australian Challenge to be announced on Thursday
by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com/nz 12 May 20:06 PDT
Tight Racing - Andoo Team Australia - UniCredit Youth America’s Cup © Ricardo Pinto for America's Cup
As reported in Sail-World on March 22, Australia will be a Challenger for the 38th America's Cup, scheduled to be held in Naples.
They will join teams from Switzerland, France, USA, Great Britain and Italy, bringing the total number of Challengers to six, and total teams to seven including defender Emirates Team New Zealand.
The formal announcement of the Challenge will be made on Thursday at an invitation-only lunch at the Royal Prince Edward Yacht Club. The club located on Sydney's exclusive Pt Piper, will be the Challenging club for the new team. The club is a first-time challenger for the America's Cup.
Key members of the team were advised back in March, with Olympic Gold medalist and 2013 America's Cup winner, Tom Slingsby as the skipper and one of the co-helmsmen. Slingsby is a three-time Grand Final winner on the SailGP circuit and is currently leading the Season 6 pointscore, with wins in three of the five events held to date.
2017 and 2021 America's Cup champion, Glenn Ashby will also be a key part of the team. Ashby was the wing sail trimmer for Emirates Team NZ in their 2013 America's Cup Challenge in San Francisco. He is blamed by many for introducing foiling into the America's Cup, based on his experiences in the Int A Class catamaran, where he won ten world championships and was the dominant sailmaker.
The team has purchased the Emirates Team NZ AC75, which won the 2021 America's Cup, and served as a test boat in the 2024 campaign. That boat is currently being modified in Auckland. The team has a design partnership with the New Zealand team, but will need to recruit its own design team.
Top 18ft skipper John Winning Jnr, whose family backed the Australia team at the 2024 Youth and Womens America's Cup is the driving force behind the 2027 America's Cup Challenge. He put together the two-year Andoo Comanche program, winning the 2022 Rolex Sydney Hobart, and placing second in the 2023 event. Others expected to be involved in the team management include 1983 winning America's Cup winner, John Bertrand and Grant Simmer, the then 26-year-old navigator from Australia II, who has had a key role in several winning America's Cup teams, including Alinghi (SUI) and Oracle Racing (USA).
With the groundwork that has been done over recent years with the Australian Olympic program, with the 2024 Youth and Womens America's Cup, the several top supermaxi teams, and the Winning family's support of 18ft skiff sailing in Sydney, the new team has a talent base on which to draw, which is probably unparalleled in the contemporary America's Cup.
Sail-World will carry full details of the Challenge after the formal announcement is made.