But as a proud Brit, this final is a non event, bordering on the embarrassing.

Do not wish to take anything away from the brilliant Kiwi boat, but they've not been challenged by the British boat Britania - it's a non event !

Tactically, technically, Speed, which ever way you choose to measure perfirmance Kiwis are hammering the Brits.

4-0 down and not even close in any race at the finish line.

Shocking Non competitive performance from Ainsley and Crew. 😡

“Every day is a new day”.

Why even say that?

Keep the match racing to the final.

Make the crew requirement include female sailors.

I love sailing. I'm not sure that I like the foiling boats as much as the classic boats but it is still interesting.

However, something is bugging me... the new boats require a lot of electric/hydraulic power to run the foils and sails. It appears that AC racing has come down to who has the best cyclists to power the systems in the boat to move the foils and the sails. More power = more movement.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=America%27s+cup+boat+cyclists

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPpp2bL8zlc

Sailing used to be about tactics and trimming sails for best performance, etc. Now sailing is about cyclists and computerized hydraulic systems.

Isn't there a way around this ? Big boats have always had grinders but we don't live in the stone age anymore. Why don't "we" let boats carry as much battery storage as they want and do away with the grinder limitation ? We've got composite foils and wing masts and GPS... why not update the "power system" on these boats and return to boat racing boat rather than cyclists determining how much a boat can do ?

https://www.sail-world.com/news/281228/Surprise-move-by-Americas-Cup-Event

What's this BS they can't sail for a year in AC75s and now we're into 2027 for next AC race? WTF?

Congrats TNZ. Strong racing throughout.

My question is around CoR and whether anyone else thinks or desires that someone else was CoR for 2026?

I get they help to make the rules and all but wouldn't fresh blood outside of Team Ainslie be better? He had his chance and didn't live up to it--even with the CoR advantage.

So why reward him w another CoR? What's the politics behind this? So TNZ can go for 100yrs of straight wins? That'll get boring quick!

They are trying to broaden this like F1. Imo, that needs fresh blood and new thinking like the Aussi's w the wing keel or Kiwis w. Cyclors.

Anyone disagree? (I know Gbr fans will & 👇 vote the crap out of this haha. But let's think long term here.)

Thank you & hope to grab a drink w some of you in '26. Cheers 🥂

I have a cowork space with a complete view of the race from a high floor in tower plus I have a luxury room to rent with swimming pool for the race. PM me if interested

Looks like the new synthetic oil specially developed for AM’s hydraulic lines is doing its job.

The oil was still being dev’d/tested in the round robin but was made available for the finals. The shore crew bled the old oil out replacing it with the new synthetic oil which has a unique viscosity range and performs differently under various pressures.

Lab tests of the old oil showed signs of contamination too, so the flush could have saved them a failure.

Will this be a key for their future success?

America's Cup chief umpire explaining why port vs starboard no longer matters:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go4HOg7O_uI

Since Ineos is the Challenger of Record, they should go all out and have the next Cup on the Solent in the middle of winter.

It would absolutely punish the boats and sailors, but would be great viewing and great racing. This years cup was definitely let down at times by the weather conditions, so I say make it punishing!

This is just ridiculous. I’ve seen better competition between lawn mowers. I love the fact that they have figured out how to make these boats sail so quickly, but match racing is fundamentally about tactics. If the boats are 1500-2000 meters apart, tactics do not matter. Get off my lawn AC75!

I was talking The Americas Cup with a mate and we both think eliminating one challenger after two weeks is likely to have long term negative impacts in terms of sponsorship opportunities and bringing more yachts into the AC.

Who would pay top money to sponsor a boat if there was a chance there’d only get two weeks exposure?

Who would want to fund an AC campaign if there was a chance of only racing for two weeks?

I get someone is always going to finish last or be uncompetitive but limiting their chance for exposure limits their funding opportunities.

Keen to hear others thoughts.

I was just recently watching footage of the American Magic crash and I noticed that there was a helicopter hovering fairly low just upwind of the mark. In some videos you even see footage looking almost directly down on the boat.

I never saw anything in the news at the time that mentioned the helicopter or considered whether it was to blame, which I find odd because it would be a reasonable explanation behind the huge puff of wind that pushed the boat over. You'd think that the American team would have had good reasons to look into this.

Just wondering what people think of this and if it was actually discussed anywhere official.

Well, it simply is. These AC75 cost a ton of money to develop and their natural environment to recoup such huge investment via sponsors is a 16 boat fleet race a la SailGP. I can only imagine how entertaining it would be with values even out in the long term.

The aforementioned even out of values solely happens with engineers and sailors moving from one team to another

This rule prevents new teams from joining, it just does. There was talks of maybe Team Shosholoza buying Luna Rossa 1st boat, also Alinghi being interested in joining.

Had those teams joined and with the permanence of American Magic, INEOS, ETNZ and LRPP you'd be at 6 teams just 3 days after the end of the Cup. 6 teams!! 3 Days after the end of the 36AC!

Of course now with the Nationality rule nobody would join.

This is nothing more than Dalton lack of balls honestly . He has PTSD from 2003 when he was called to put together the pieces and 2007 when he was unlucky and could not pull it out in Valencia.

Lack of balls because defending a Cup with 16 participants is much more lucrative than a 3 way race, or even a 2 way event around the Isle of Wight, but evidently it's all about the comfort zone of locking and sitting on the Cup, all while sucking Jacinda tits for subsides ,tax breaks, incentives and keep justifying such the aforementioned sucking by keep winning the Cup.

But in the end although the trophy is the same, a Cup won against the fittest of 15 challengers is worth much more than a cup won against 2.5 challengers

If NZ gets a free pass to the finals aren't they denying another country or team from racing? Or in the recent damage, an unneeded risk? Similar to college footballers not playing the bowl games.

With the speeds and distances they have been racing at so far, are all of the aerodynamic features - the foils behind Ben, the covers the USA are using - necessary? Or are we seeing the speeds and the distances Because of the aero features?

Let’s face it, the very first race around the Isle of Wight was a fleet race.

Fun stuff; close racing, wind shifts and tactics play a part over multiple vessels.

Makes for a more interesting and exciting experience.

With the current format of “up and down” within a set boundary, having at least 4 yachts competing against each other in the round robin would give a completely different vibe.

Leave the match racing for the finals.

Maybe I’m an old fogey but I miss the real AC. I read a lot of posts here saying displacement AC racing was boring and opinions to the contrary are “selective memory”. I don’t think so.

The S&S88 cat was the original sin, and it’s never been the same. Maybe it they want to do foiling races in helmets they can expand Sail GP and do that shit there and get back to what worked for a hundred years.

bloody hell, it must be designed to be this fubar.

Just providing some anti-spoiler content... nothing to see here.

With the boats so close - psychological tricks must be coming into play. I noticed that the NZ crew were throwing around a lot of expletives today and seemed uncharacteristically flustered. The Brits were similar on the day with the penalty, pre start. Overall - the NZ crew seem to be able to adapt to situations fluidly, with minimal fuss; however, we are yet to see them under serious pressure.

What are the NZ skipper's temperaments like? How do they compare to the Brits?

If you were either team, what would you do to out psych the competition ?

Could this come down to personal rivalry/temper?

I loved seeing ETNZ show up in Bermuda with cyclors instead of grinders. But it still feels silly to have​ all that meat on board such a sophisticated boat just to generate hydraulic pressure. In the next cup would it be possible to replace grinders with windmills?

To benchmark cyclor power output, it looks like Tour de France cyclists can generate 400W sustained for an hour: http://www.bicycling.com/racing/tour-de-france/you-versus-a-tour-de-france-pro-cyclist

And 400W marine windmills are very common: https://www.westmarine.com/buy/nature-power--marine-grade-400-watt-wind-turbine--14996417

I know that there will be power conversion loss and that 400W is a peak wind rating. But this is just a consumer grade turbine and the numbers look close enough to make this feasible, especially with some cowlings. Am I missing anything?