America's Cup: Vrolijk's "accolade": The America's Cup Hall of Fame is calling

For Rolf Vrolijk, the imminent inclusion is like an overdue accolade. And fittingly, it will take place in Portsmouth at the headquarters of Sir Ben Ainslie's British Ineos Team UK, for which the Dutchman with Hamburg roots and an international sphere of influence is working as a consultant in the 36th Cup cycle. On 2 June, three new members will be inducted into the circle of pioneering America's Cup protagonists of the Herreshoff Marine Museum America's Cup Hall of Fame. In addition to Rolf Vrolijk, this year's inductees are the well-known British "rules pope" and author Bryan Willis and - posthumously - the two-time America's Cup winner Franklin Osgood (1828-1888), who first won the ornate silver jug in 1880 with the schooner "Magic" and successfully defended the trophy the following year with the new schooner "Columbia". Osgood was also a member of the historic first America's Cup Committee of the New York Yacht Club.

Rolf Vrolijk has written several chapters of America's Cup history with Ernesto Bertarelli's Swiss team Alinghi. The Swiss team won the most famous regatta in international sailing in Auckland in 2003, snatching victory from the Kiwis with a superior international sailing team on the fast Cup yacht with the sail number SUI-64. The victory of the team led by skipper Russell Coutts marked the historic first Cup win for a European team. Four years later, Bertarelli's crew successfully defended the Cup with the SUI-100 at the 32nd edition of the Cup off Valencia. In both cases, Rolf Vrolijk was responsible for the winners as chief designer. The Swiss Société Nautique de Genève only lost the Cup to Larry Ellison's BMW Oracle Racing team from the Golden Gate Yacht Club in San Francisco in a "Deed of Gift" duel between two unequal multihulls enforced by the Americans.

Rolf Vrolijk's success story in the America's Cup began at the turn of the millennium when he designed the Spanish Cup yacht "Bravo España". Although the team missed out on reaching the semi-finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup at the time, the hull of the yacht was still regarded by experts as one of the best. This was one of the reasons why Ernesto Bertarelli subsequently brought Rolf Vrolijk into his dream team as chief designer, which also included Germany's most successful sailor Jochen Schümann.

In addition to his outstanding skills as a designer, Rolf Vrolijk is also known in the international sailing world as a fair player and a man of soft tones. For example, New Zealander Brad Butterworth, multiple Cup winner and America's Cup Hall of Fame member, says: "I'm a huge fan of Rolf Vrolijk. I was on the same teams as him, especially at Alinghi, where he upheld the ideals of racing as a true sportsman." Rolf Vrolijk is also known for many other fast designs such as Maxis or TP52 racers, including Harm Müller-Spreer's world champion "Platoon". The upcoming new recording in June follows last year's Hall of Fame Gala at the Robbe & Berking Heritage Centre in Flensburg, where Cup hunters and many celebrities met in November 2019 in the stylish setting of the America's Cup exhibition and discovered a new favourite place in northern Germany.