Lessons Learned

TOBY HEPPELL speaks to Land Rover BAR’s Ben Ainslie about what lessons he will be taking on for the next America’s Cup and BAR Academy’s Youth AC winner, Annabel Vose about her ambitions.

- Toby Heppell

In early July, we got the first details of AC36 released by newly anointed America’s Cup defender, Emirates Team New Zealand and their Challenger of Record, Luna Rossa Prada. Ultimately the announcement was detail light, and really serves only to confirm the date for the next America’s Cup – some time in early 2021 – and the venue – Auckland, New Zealand.

More than anything, as Emirates Team New Zealand CEO, Grant Dalton, freely admits, the announcement was made to serve potential challengers notice that there is movement underway and that a Protocol will be forthcoming in September. It has certainly been a relatively short time since the Kiwis’ win for details to be announced, but there were promises to try and keep things moving better between Cups this time – even though the New Zealanders did not sign up to the Framework Agreement, the rolling two-year contract that then defender Oracle and the four other AC35 challengers signed in January 2017.

Whether or not you agree with a rolling protocol for the America’s Cup, it is hard to argue that these transitional periods are anything other than extremely tough for those wanting to challenge for the next Cup, needing to keep a team afloat with little idea as to the class of boat or the format of racing for the next Cup.