August 29, 2024 marks the first day of the racing that will eventually, in October, lead to one team, one country winning the 37th America’s Cup regatta. Since 1851 when the American yacht America won the British Round the Island race, defeating Britain’s best sailors and yacht designers, the trophy, then known as The Hundred Guineas Cup, has been called the America’s Cup. It is the regatta is oldest, longest running sporting event in the world.
Always considered a “development class” regatta in which innovation has been embraced, this year’s event will be sailed in foiling 75-foot boats that hardly look like boats at all. They resemble large water spiders that can skim across the waves at 60 knots. And they have the tendency to occasionally end up in spectacular crashes, kind of like formular One racing.
New Zealand is the defender but the racing that starts today is in the waters off Barcelona, Spain. Britain is the Challenger of Record and hope to reclaim the Hundred Guineas Cup after losing it so long ago. There are four other challengers sailing for the U.S., Italy, France and Switzerland. All of the teams, except for the French, have long America’s Cup pedigrees.
The Challengers’ regatta, in which they vie to become the official challenger for New Zealand is called the Louis Vuitton Cup and runs in a round-robin format until two teams have been eliminated. The semi-finals and finals follow in which one crew and one boat will emerge as the last ones standing.
The racing, although limited to short windward-leeward courses, will fluctuate from thrilling to mind-numbing depending on the wind and the competitiveness of the boats. The finals are almost always very closely fought.
Unfortunately, the only way to watch the racing live on TV in the U.S. will be on the subscription cable channel ESPN+ that has a basic subscription price of $10.99 a month. The official America’s Cup website will stream videos of the races with a 24-hour delay. Check out the America’s Cup website here.
https://www.americascup.com/
