Team New Zealand sailed their AC75 Te Rehutai at the Cup venue in Barcelona last year. Photo / America's Cup
Team New Zealand sailed their AC75 Te Rehutai at the Cup venue in Barcelona last year. Photo / America's Cup
Competing in the America’s Cup challenger series will force a trade-off for Team New Zealand, weighing up the value of time spent racing against time spent developing.
In Barcelona later this year, the Defender will be straight into the thick of things as they line up in the round robin stages of the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series. It will give the challengers plenty of opportunity to see what Team New Zealand are working with, given the challenger series is preceded by a preliminary regatta which will be the first time the teams race their new AC75s.
It puts Team New Zealand in a different position going into the Cup match than they were in for the 2021 regatta in Auckland, where the Defender raced in a preliminary regatta in December 2020, then wasn’t seen again in proper racing until the Cup match began in March.
Team New Zealand chief operating officer Kevin Shoebridge said their desire to get more racing under their belts was a key reason for the structure of the regatta, but he also felt like the event would benefit from the team being involved from the outset.
“Having us in there in the early part, and I think if you ask the challengers, I think everyone would be pretty happy about it because it also gives them a gauge on how we’re going,” Shoebridge said.
“I guess the surprise factor is not quite as much as there was in Auckland, but there’s still a lot of time between the round robins and the match, and there’s still a lot of performance to be gained in that period of time.
“The teams won’t ever stop developing, so just because people get a look at us and we get a look at them in the round robins doesn’t mean they’ll be that way in the match.”
Team New Zealand had been sailing their AC75 Te Rehutai at the Cup venue in Barcelona last year. Photo / America's Cup
While there have been two preliminary regattas in the cycle, they both saw the teams racing in their scaled-down AC40s. Those boats being one-design vessels, it was a matter of how well the teams raced; American Magic (Vilanova i la Geltru) and Team New Zealand (Jeddah) coming away with wins.
That won’t be the case the next time the teams all take to the water as the teams will unveil the AC75 they have spent the last few years designing and developing in a big to have the fastest boat of the six.
The Defender taking part in the double round robin against the five challengers will be telling early in terms of which packages are looking competitive, however, Team New Zealand won’t collect any points toward the semifinals. The top four challengers move into the knockout stages and one is eliminated after the round robins.
It is essentially a period of practice racing for Team New Zealand, but one that will serve an important purpose if they are to retain the Auld Mug once more.
“We’ll be taking it pretty seriously, obviously. It’s a great way for our whole organisation to get tested in a race mode, which you don’t have a lot of opportunity to do normally,” Shoebridge said.
“I guess the trade-off is we’ve had to bring some of our decisions forward a little bit, but in balance we think that’s a better thing to do. The construction times are pretty long on things like foils and rudders and stuff, so a lot of those decisions have either been made or are about to be made now.”
America’s Cup key dates
Barcelona Preliminary Regatta: August 22-25
Louis Vuitton Cup Round Robins: August 29-September 8
