America’s Cup, war of nerves: AM and Athena Racing mumble, Team New Zealand responds with Protocol

The America’s Cup has already begun. Not today, not yesterday, and not even on the day of the announcement of the future venue in Naples, but months ago. In the tight negotiations between the challengers, represented by the Challenge of Record Athena Racing, and the defender Emirates Team New Zealand, the rules of the future are being played out. The Defender is doing everything it can to try to hold on to the lead and still win the America’s Cup, the challengers are doing everything they can to try to have rules that will shorten their gap and play it out on a level playing field. A game of the parties in short, involving its skirmishes and pressure on each other.

Yesterday, as we were publishing our analysis of the America’s Cup moment in Naples, a joint statement came out from American Magic and Athena Racing, which has all the flavor of a skirmish and an attempt to pressure the Defender. Between the lines is the veiled threat not to show up in Naples if the Defender does not listen to certain demands for a fairer competition, but without specifying which ones. The two challengers complain that they do not know the details of the agreement between Team New Zealand and the Italian government in the format of the Naples event. A Defender that is actually on schedule: it announced the venue before the June 2025 deadline, the month in which it also pledged to publish the Protocol.

Premise: we firmly believe that American Magic, and Atena Racing, despite yesterday’s communiqué, will be there in Naples all right. The fuss they raised, however, served to shake the defender, who today “spit out” a draft Protocol, with obviously very interesting contents, also specifying that all challengers would receive details regarding the Naples event. Let’s go over the most important new features of the Protocol.

America’s Cup protocol, here’s what’s new

Let’s start with the hottest news. As we anticipated to you yesterday there is a new rule about the nationality of the sailing team. There will be 2 foreigners who will be allowed to embark but, as we predicted, they must not have taken part in the last America’s Cup. The defender in short makes sure that no one will be allowed to engage Peter Burling on the sailing team. This does not mean, however, that the Kiwi cannot be hired in other roles, as a boat design developer, or used in training. In fact, Section 30.1 of the Protocol specifies that this rule applies to the official events of the upcoming America’s Cup; it does not mention the training phases.

The other big change is the number of people on board, 6 instead of the 8 in the last edition, and there will be no more cycling grinders. Of those 6, one must be under 25, and there must be at least one woman (no age limit). The energy produced by the grinders will be replaced by a battery pack that will provide power for the foils and sail handling systems.

The Protocol is now pretty much on the table, except for a couple of points that will still be subject to changes, what will the challengers respond now?

Mauro Giuffrè