America's Cup: Second Cup team from America: "Stars & Stripes" in the race

Not without enthusiasm, the New Zealand Cup defenders have announced their fifth officially accepted challenger: Team Stars & Stripes, a second American team after American Magic, is to compete for the oldest and most important trophy in international sailing in 2021. The team will be represented by Long Beach Yacht Club. After the Italian "Challenger of Record" Luna Rossa from Prada patriarch Patrizio Bertelli, Sir Ben Ainslie's Ineos Team UK, the US team American Magic and the Malta Altus Challenge, which was only confirmed last week, there is now a quintet of challengers who have already filled the planned base camps in New Zealand. If more challengers are accepted in the coming days between now and Christmas, the hosts will have to expand their America's Cup plans to accommodate the teams.

The Long Beach Yacht Club has been known to regatta sailors for decades, especially through the Congressional Cup. The popular match race regatta has always challenged the current stars in duel sailing. The campaign name Stars & Stripes(the colloquial name for the American flag, ed.) brings back memories of "Mr America's Cup" Dennis Conner. The Cup superstar, who has just attended the final of the Star Sailors League off Nassau as guest of honour, led teams into the competition under this name in 1987, 1988, 1992, 1995, 2000 and 2003 and signalled his approval for the new team to use the name.

"Our name was created in recognition of Dennis Conner's Stars & Stripes campaigns that defined all-American Cup sailing for decades. We are the next generation," explained co-founder Mike Buckley. Buckley will be joined by American sailor Taylor Canfield, one of the best-known and most successful duelling sailors of recent years. Canfield has topped the match race world rankings for years and has won the Congressional Cup four times. He is known to German fans for his participation in Match Race Germany in 2013 and 2014. At that time, however, he did not finish higher than fifth and seventh in his early match racing days. His rise in duelling sailing only came in the following years.

"We have developed our programme and will be announcing more details soon," explained Canfield, "it has been a lifelong goal of mine to compete in the America's Cup. I am confident that we will be very competitive by 2021." Some team members of the campaign are already known. For example, CEO Justin Shaffer, who has driven his career to date in Major League Baseball, at Facebook and also with commitments in the TP52 circuit. Working alongside him as COO is Tod Reynolds, who organised the America's Cup World Series in Chicago, among other things. Team General Counsel Melinda Erkelens is already well known to Cup insiders: the American has already taken on important roles in five Cup editions. The head of the design team is JB Braun, who was part of the Oracle Team USA design team in 2013 and 2017. Construction of the Americans' Cup yacht has already begun in Michigan. To this end, Team Stars & Stripes acquired a design and technology package from Cup defender Emirates Team New Zealand.