The 38th America's Cup kicks off in Cagliari in just over three months from 21 to 24 May. With the choice of venue, the Cup teams will be sailing the first pre-regatta in the Italian lions' den: Cagliari is home to Patrizio Bertelli's Team Luna Rossa on the Ichnusa Dock. Bertelli and the Azzurri are contesting their legendary seventh challenge under the flag of the Neapolitan club Circolo del Remo e della Vela Italia, founded in 1889. But their headquarters are based in Cagliari.
38th America's Cup: the first test
For the first time since the last Cup final in Barcelona in autumn 2024, the current Cup teams will compete in a regatta again. Above all, the sailing skills of the athletes will be put to the test, as the small AC40-One designs of the racing teams will be put to the test. After the opening ceremony on 21 May, four fleet races are scheduled for 22 and 23 May. Three more fleet races will follow on the final day (24 May) before the two best teams battle it out in a knockout duel for the event victory.
The speciality: each of the teams taking part in the 38th Louis Vuitton America's Cup is allowed to send two AC40s into the race. One of the boats is crewed by the core of the Cup squad, the second by a mix of youth sailors and women from their teams. It will be exciting to see how well the youngsters perform in comparison to the elite and whether the foiling youngsters can dance around the establishment's bow tips.
The lively city of Cagliari with its joie de vivre and magnificent backdrop is a perfect match for the expected dynamic sporting start to the new Cup cycle. The Olympic skiff and Nacra 17 sailors last determined their world champions there in autumn 2025 off Cagliari's almost Caribbean-style main beach, Poetto Beach. It's not just the Olympians who have experienced the area as beautiful, but also changeable and challenging.
Old cup rivalries revitalised
The races of the first pre-regatta for the 38th America's Cup will take place in two alternative course areas with a radius of around two kilometres close to the shore. This will give spectators the best views along the coast and right up to the headlands. On land, there will be a Race Village with a main stage, large Jumbotron screens, exhibitions, an official merchandising shop and a range of catering options.
The "AC Viewing Promenade" will extend from the town and along the entire waterfront promenade to the Lazaretto di Cagliari with a view of the regatta area and a large screen. Sailing novice activities and activities organised by the teams and their partners are also planned. The Cup teams are expected to arrive in Sardinia from 5 May. Their "pit lane" will be set up in the military harbour of Cagliari with temporary team camps.
The unofficial training phase runs from 16 to 20 May. A press conference is planned for the day of the opening ceremony on 21 May, before the official training day takes place. In the evening, all teams will present themselves on the main stage in the Race Village. Then, from Friday to Sunday, old America's Cup rivalries will be revived on the water off Cagliari. Here is an overview of the further event route to Naples, where the challenger round and the 38th duel for the America's (from 10 July 2027) will take place.
Which young stars will rise?
When the 38th America's Cup duel takes place off Naples on 10 July 2027, it will be 175 years, 10 months and 19 days since the premiere of the most famous regatta in the sailing world. No other international sporting event that is still regularly held today can look back on such a long history. Who will make it to the final this time? The candidates will start to position themselves in Cagliari in May.
The results of the pre-regattas are not included in the ranking of the challenger round for the 38th America's Cup. And yet they will show which players the teams are counting on at this early stage, which sailors are doing well, who is doing their sporting homework best and where one or two young stars may be rising.
So far, five teams are active in the current cycle. They are all "repeat offenders": as defending champions, the four-time Cup winners from the Emirates Team New Zealand into the ring. Challenger of Record is Sir Ben Ainslies just in Team GB1 renamed British racing team. Other challengers include Parizio Bertelli's Team Luna Rossathat Italy's sailing fans in particular want to see win.
Almost failed, then confirmed: the new America's Cup Partnership
There are also two other European challengers: firstly the Tudor Team Alinghi Ernsto Bertarelli, who won the Cup twice in 2003 and 2007 with his Swiss racing team Alinghi, the only European team to do so to date. And the French K-Challenge with the ambitious Cup hunters and co-CEOs Stephan Kandler and Bruno Dubois. They are all Part of the newly founded America's Cup Partnership (ACP)where decisions on Cup matters will be made democratically in future.
The path to this revolutionary Cup development was not an easy one. "We came close to failure about ten times," admitted New Zealand's conductor and co-father of the new Cup organisation. Grant Dalton said in an interview with Niall Myant-Best for the new series "Inside America's Cup": "In July (ed.: 2025) we almost completely failed."
From Dalton's perspective, the Cup in its new form was saved in the middle of last year by the two club chairmen of the participating clubs, the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron and the British Royal Yacht Squadron, calling for a sense of reality. The protocol was then signed in August, and it took until the end of December to set up the joint ACP management structure. The "joint model" will now be put to the test for the first time in the 38th America's Cup.
Only "peace, joy and pancakes" in the America's Cup in future?
Dalton explained the change of course, which was confirmed by all those involved, against the background of his own Cup experience: "The Cup is 175 years old. The game has always been to hate the others. And now it's all peace, joy and pancakes. You could argue that it's actually wrong for us to be in the same room, because traditionally we don't like each other. And they don't like me either. There's no doubt about that."
So now we have to put on our 'grown-up trousers'. Otherwise we're the wrong generation for the new America's Cup." Grant Dalton
However, Grant Dalton knows that despite the painstakingly achieved 700-page protocol and the now joint Cup "government" of all ACP teams: "We could completely mess this up within a week if we just argue and don't agree on anything. We had to give up a lot (ed.: as defenders). But I believe that if we hadn't done that, given its long history, the Cup might not have been dead, but it would definitely have been in big trouble." Instead, a new modern wind will carry the America's Cup into the future from the first pre-regatta in May off Cagliari.
