America’s Cup 2024: What is it, how does it work today, race schedule and dates

As Ben Ainslie attempts to win Britain’s first America’s Cup, here is everything you need to know about yachting’s blue-riband event

The final of the 37th America’s Cup takes place in Barcelona today as the British challenger led by Ben Ainslie bids to end a 173-year wait for a first British victory.
There are just two teams competing. Ainslie’s crew earned the right to race against the defender, New Zealand, by beating Italians Luna Rossa in the final of the Louis Vuitton Cup – a challenger series held before the America’s Cup proper. 
Ainslie’s Ineos Britannia, representing the Royal Yacht Squadron, now face Emirates Team New Zealand, representing the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, in a first-to-seven match.
The America’s Cup is the oldest international trophy in sport. It was first held in 1851, when it was known as the “£100 Cup”. It predates the modern Olympic Games by 45 years, making the competition 173 years old. 
In the first match the schooner America, representing the New York Yacht Club, came over to the Isle of Wight and beat the best the Royal Yacht Squadron could muster to claim the ‘Auld Mug’.
The watching Queen Victoria was said to have asked, “Who was second?” to which the reply was, “Ma’am, there is no second”. There have been 36 editions in total. Britain has never won it.
The America’s Cup starts today. In the race to seven wins, two races per day can be sailed per day on October 12, 13, 16, 18, 19, 20 and 21. The reserve days are October 14, 17, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27.
Racing is weather dependent but scheduled to start at 1pm UK time on race days (2pm local time) and generally runs until 3pm or 4pm UK time.
In the UK and Ireland, live coverage of the America’s Cup is on TNT Sports and Eurosport/Discovery. The whole event is also streamed for free on YouTube, Facebook and on the America’s Cup official website.
Telegraph Sport will live-blog every race of the final, with Hannah Snellgrove, the British Olympic sailor, offering commentary and analysis of the competition off Barcelona.
With three minutes to go, as long as the wind limit has not been breached (21 knots being the upper limit, and 6.5 knots the lower limit), the race will be declared ‘on’.
The ‘port entry’ boat, arriving from the left, is allowed to enter the start box – the defined race boundary laid out by the race organisers – with 2min 10sec to go.
It has to cross the start line from the windward side (ie. with the wind behind it, in the opposite direction to the first ‘upwind’ leg of the race).
The ‘starboard entry’ boat, arriving from the right, is permitted to enter the box with two minutes to go, at which point the pre-start jostling for position begins.
Teams use a tactical app to help them get their time and distance spot on. Any early entry will be penalised.
Boats may try to engage each other in the pre-start to try to force a penalty, or gain an advantageous position, with the ultimate aim to hit the line bang on time while hurting your rivals’ chances of doing so.
Crossing early is a no no as that means you are ‘OCS’ (on course side) and will result in a penalty of 75m relative to the other boat. Penalties are applied electronically. Once you have dropped back sufficiently your penalty will be ‘cleared’.
There are then a number of upwind and downwind legs (usually six but this will depend on the strength of the wind. In heavy winds it could go up to eight legs), with the total race time intended to be around 25 minutes.
If the race is not completed within 45 minutes – if the breeze drops away for instance – the race is declared null and void.
There are gates at the top and bottom of the course. You can choose to go either way once you have gone through the gate. The trailing boat will often ‘split’ the course, or head out in the opposite direction to the lead boat, in order to try to get some clear air and make a gain, rather than just follow the other boat around.
Legs can be lengthened or shortened in-race, and the gates moved, if the wind strength or direction changes significantly.
For Ineos Britannia, Ben Ainslie is the most successful Olympic sailor of all-time (4 x gold, 1 x silver), as well as a former match racing world champion. He has won one America’s Cup as a tactician, aboard Oracle Team USA, and is now challenging for the third time with his own team.
For Emirates Team New Zealand, Peter Burling is a Kiwi prodigy. He was the youngest 49er sailor at the London Olympics (aged 21) where he won silver with Blair Tuke, the youngest 49er gold medal-winning skipper in Rio (25), the youngest helmsman to win the America’s Cup in Bermuda in 2017 (26) and the youngest to defend it in Auckland (30), when he also took over as skipper of Emirates Team New Zealand.
In terms of styles, it is fair to say Ainslie is the more aggressive. He is likely to try to engage the New Zealand boat in the pre-starts, as he did with Luna Rossa in the challenger series final to good effect.
New Zealand, who are super smooth through manoeuvres and will start the Cup as favourites, are likely to try to keep their noses clean and then assert themselves in the race. But that could all go out the window depending on who has the quicker boat.
Ineos Britannia 7-5 Team New ZealandPossibly heart ruling head. New Zealand will undoubtedly start as favourites – the defender always does in the America’s Cup – but there is something about the way Ineos built through the challenger series. The Kiwis have not raced since the round robins a few weeks ago, of course, and Ineos did not manage to beat them then. But Ainslie’s team have clearly made huge strides since, increasing their boat speed and manoeuvrability across the wind range, while also improving their comms. 
The unknown is what New Zealand have done to their boat. They were using old sails in the round robins, and they are likely to have made lots of modifications, including to their foils. Can Ineos continue to develop through the Cup match and edge another classic? It would be an achievement to rank alongside any in British sport.
In the most recent America’s Cup, in 2021, Emirates Team New Zealand beat Italy’s Luna Rossa 7-3. That was the fourth America’s Cup title for the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron. 
The New York Yacht Club won the first ever America’s Cup held in 1851 before successfully defending it 24 times over the course of the next 130 years against a succession of mainly British challengers backed by splendid adventurer-types. James Lloyd Ashbury, the son of a railway tycoon, tried twice without success. Sir Thomas Lipton, founder of the famous tea company, challenged five times over a period of 31 years. Sir Thomas Sopwith, of the famous First World War single-seat biplane, challenged twice in the 1930s on his J-class yachts Endeavour and Endeavour II.
The New York Yacht Club — backed by great American dynasties like the JP Morgans and the Vanderbilts — sent them all packing. It was only in 1983, by which time the Cup match was preceded by a challenger series between the fleet of hopefuls, that a foreign syndicate finally prevailed. Australia II, with its controversial ‘winged keel’ (which survived a legal protest by the NYYC), took the Cup to Perth. Since then, New Zealand have won the Cup four times, the United States have won it with two different yacht clubs, and even land-locked Switzerland have won it twice. Britain has still never won it.
The Louis Vuitton Cup challenger selection series – in order to determine who would compete in the America’s Cup proper – started with a double round-robin stage between the five challengers from August 29 to September 8. The French Orient Express Racing Team were eliminated after this initial phase.
In the semi-finals Great Britain (Ineos Britannia) beat Switzerland (Alinghi); and Italy (Luna Rossa) beat the US (American Magic).
In the GB v Italy final, on the opening day of racing, Luna Rossa took the first victory but Ineos Britannia fought back to make it 1-1. When racing resumed in high winds on Sunday, September 29, Luna Russo were disqualified from the third race but controversially won the fourth. On Monday, again the teams took a race apiece. 
The series really exploded into life on Tuesday, October 1 when Luna Rossa nosedived in the opening race and badly damaged their boat. Remarkably, they fixed some of the damage with gaffer tape and bounced back to win the eighth race, thereby locking the series at 4-4. On Wednesday, Ineos Britannia finally broke the deadlock, winning both races to move 6-4 up. Britain’s 7-4 victory was confirmed on Friday, October 4 and celebrated wildly. 
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