Rob Weiland
In spite of being one of the founding nations, and winning the trophy eight times in the first 13 editions, thereafter the host nation won just once in the 20 years that followed with the honours going to the USA, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Italy, France and Germany (three-time winners). But it was not the challenge of beating the home team that saw the event draw to a quiet close at the end of the 1990s, it was the ultra-refined extreme competitiveness of the IOR-level rating classes used in the event’s later editions. There was now literally no place left for even an A-minus team, nor for anyone other than pro crew on the boats. Cause or effect, the demands of offshore-phobic pro sailors or the outrageous optimisation budgets. However you slice it, for a new Admiral’s Cup to prosper there must be some acknowledgment of the part played in those first 35 years of great success by the original ‘run what you brung’ ethos
Admiral’s Cup, more than an event
Check the Seahorse New Boats Table, which is split into Custom and Series Build, and you will notice a number of things. The custom table lists just over 30 boats, including five AC75s. Around half of these could do a race like the Fastnet. Only four are privately owned fully crewed racers potentially capable of winning rated inshore as
well as offshore races. Not surprisingly all are in the 52ft range: a recently launched Botín-designed IRC52 from TP52 Sledmoulds for Australian Marcus Blackmore, a Welbourn-designed Infiniti DSS 52 that McConaghy offers, a Reichel-Pugh push-button 52ft racer- cruiser built in New Zealand and an Ino Noir-style Carkeek 54 for a French client. Of the four I reckon we might see the Carkeek 54 in the 2025 Admiral’s Cup. Besides the five AC75s there are three class-legal TP52s in the
custom build table (2024 Alegre, Platoonand Provezza), four Imocas and six different Class40 designs of which I am not sure how many boats are under construction but what a success this class is! Also there are a cold-moulded Douglas fir/Western red cedar
Lyman Morse build, a Kevin Dibley-designed 46ft gentleman’s yacht and two superyachts, a Frers-designed Wally 145 and a McKeon- designed 60m sloop (sic). So no boats in the Admiral’s Cup Class 2 range (TCC 1.100-1.276 and LH 11.00-13.40m) unless you take a Class40 into rated racing. Potentially a pretty good choice offshore but less so around the cans. For production boats you must go to the series builds table which at first sight omits some popular production designs from brands
like Bénéteau, Grand-Soleil and X-Yachts who offer boats fitting Admiral’s Cup Class 2. Of course come summer 2025 and JPK designs will be particularly well represented in the Admiral’s Cup, I reckon, but will there be any custom builds in Class 2? If any regatta did trigger building new it was the Admiral’s Cup,
but that was over 20 years ago when the marine industry was a completely different animal. Still, just as TP52 class boats, honed to perfection by box rule racing at the MedCup and 52 Super Series, have via the secondhand market stimulated owning and racing fully crewed yachts leading to several pockets of fierce rated competition all around the glove, the Admiral’s Cup could have a similar effect on racing and building new once again. Like the TP52s, the boats the Admiral’s Cup requires are not
one-trick ponies and will continue to do well no matter where they race. Nor should they depreciate too fast in either value or perfor- mance, so very suitable for their second, third or fourth owners. Once buying an optimised Admiral’s Cup Class 2 boat becomes
an option, say from the second or third edition of the ‘new’ Cup, then this should have a similar effect to the TP52s, delivering a pool of good yachts being campaigned all over the world, of a stan- dard that you cannot buy off the shelf yet still good value for money. This would be helped by wise rule development, particularly IRC
and ORC not diverging their typeforming further and preferably con- verging. I might not have enough New Year wishes left to even sug- gest this; still, as with our national New Year’s lottery, I keep buying tickets. And it is still not too late: as long as TP52s keep winning under both systems without too many modifications there is hope.
SEAHORSE 37
ANDREW WOODLEY/ALAMY
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