Bumper entry in prospect for 2024 Women’s and Youth America’s Cup events
The organisers of the 37th America’s Cup are planning for as many as 12 teams to compete in both the Women’s and Youth America’s Cup regattas scheduled to take place in Barcelona, Spain in 2024 in parallel with the main event.
The Youth and Women’s events will both take place using the new AC40 one-design foiling monohull class with the entries split into two pools of six for an initial fleet race series.
The first pool will be made up of entries from the America’s Cup syndicates, leaving the second pool for independent yacht club entries that qualify to enter under the nationality clause of the 37th America’s Cup Protocol.
In both events each six team pool will race a series of six to nine fleet races with the top three teams from each pool progressing to the final series of three to four fleet races to decide the top two teams to compete in a single winner-takes-all match race final.
The AC37 organisers are hoping for the two events to be major highlights of the 37th America’s Cup cycle with both the Women’s and Youth America’s Cup racing planned to take place on the full America’s Cup racecourse off the Barcelona waterfront during the final stages of the Challenger Selection Series and the opening days of America’s Cup Match itself.
“As we have always intended the Women’s and Youth America’s Cup events are going to be major draw cards of the 37th America’s Cup, and we want to give them the exposure these athletes and teams deserve,” said America’s Cup Event CEO Grant Dalton.
“It won’t just be the fans and audience who are watching these events, the teams themselves will be keeping a laser-focus on the emerging talent with an eye towards the make-up of their teams for the 38th America’s Cup.”
Although details are scarce at this stage around specific teams and sailors planning to enter the Women’s and Youth regattas are expected to attract the very best female and youth athletes from around the world.
The six strictly one-design AC40’s supplied by the America’s Cup teams will be maintained off the water by a shared shore and technical support provided by the organisers in an effort to facilitate cost savings and to ensure consistency across the fleet.
Youth America’s Cup crews can be made up of all-male, all-female or mixed crews. The sailors must be aged 25 or under on the first race of the 37th America’s Cup Match. Meanwhile there is no age restriction for the Women’s America’s Cup.
The crew nationality requirements of the 37th America’s Cup Protocol shall apply for both regattas. One hundred percent of the crew sailing each yacht in each race must be nationals of the country of the yacht club that the team represents.
The AC organisers are also hoping to attract independent yacht club entries for both the Youth and the Women’s America’s Cups and have made provision to relax the nationality rules for entries from ‘Emerging Nations’ to allow approved non-nationals to be included as part for the sailing team.
The AC organisers say there has already been significant global interest from yacht clubs hoping to be able to field teams in both events. More details of the entry criteria will be made available in due course and the window for expressions of interest from prospective teams will be opened on October 1st, 2022.
