A Shakespearean America’s Cup
The lead up to the 38th edition of the America’s Cup in Napoli, Italy, has all the earmarks of the prolific English writer William Shakespeare’s best work and drama. It was in that beginning, 1851 to be exact, that an event graced with the “presence” of a queen became the holy grail of yachting. Taking place around the Isle of Wight, and as fate (and some local knowledge) would have it, the legend of the yacht America and its Cup was born.
The “Auld Mug” was nothing more than an off-the-shelf trophy that was later presented to the yacht’s owners, who represented a yacht club still in its infancy, barely six years old. Yet that trophy and yacht club would change the yachting world and the world of sport as we knew it.
In 1857 George L. Schuyler, one of the original founders of the New York Yacht Club, would donate the Cup as a “perpetual sailing trophy for friendly competition between nations” represented by their yacht clubs. He would amend that Deed of Gift in 1887, bequeathing it to the State of New York as a charitable trust. The exact wording and meaning of that simple document have been debated among sailing scholars for years.
All this glorious historical spectacle brings us to the drama of the present day, as the America’s Cup as a sporting event, and all that it once represented and now represents, is at a crossroads as it struggles for relevance in a crowded sports marketplace.
The year 2027 is fast approaching, and as if it were a Shakespearean play, the 38th America’s Cup is full of bravado and drama. The Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron (RNZYS) has held the America’s Cup since 2017 and has successfully defended it twice, most recently in Barcelona in 2024. The club hopes to do so again in Naples in 2027. That “defense” has become a tempest in a teapot!
The RNZYS’s racing team, Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ), accepted a challenge from the Royal Yacht Squadron “Limited” (RYSL) and together created a mutual consent Protocol for the 38th America’s Cup. In doing so, they established a management organization called America’s Cup Properties (ACP) to run the event. ACP will be driven by a new governance board, with each team having a seat, that will pursue commercial growth, long-term investment and continued technical development across multiple America’s Cup cycles, which are now scheduled every two years. That evolution is already reflected in the AC75 class rules, which require at least one female sailor and replace grinders/cyclors with battery-powered systems.
Read the full story here.