Few sporting events can claim 170 years of history, and fewer still have received the kind of documentary treatment now afforded to the America's Cup. Published by TASCHEN in collaboration with Louis Vuitton, this coffee table book is every bit as ambitious as the competition it chronicles, spanning 564 lavishly produced pages and stretching from the inaugural race of 1851 right through to the 37th edition held in 2024.
The volume was edited by veteran sports journalist Giuseppe (Pino) Allievi, whose six years of research underpin every chapter. The result brings together rare photographs, technical schematics, first-hand accounts, and stories that have never before been told in a single publication. Teams, owners, skippers, and the extraordinary yachts they sailed are all given their due, charting the Cup's journey from a gentlemanly nineteenth-century regatta to a fiercely competitive, technology-driven global spectacle.
The book is available in three distinct editions, each designed to impress in its own way.
The General Edition delivers the complete content at a more accessible price. The same depth of imagery, research, and design is present throughout, making it an ideal choice for passionate sailing fans, students of sporting history, or anyone drawn to the point where sport, art, and engineering converge.
The Collector's Edition raises the stakes considerably. Limited to 825 numbered copies, it was designed by acclaimed industrial designer Marc Newson and arrives in a custom case constructed from real cotton sailcloth, fastened with a metal closure system created by Louis Vuitton. The book itself measures 33 x 43 cm, weighs 7.65 kg, and features silver-edged pages, a format that gives the photography and technical diagrams genuine room to breathe.
For those who want the definitive object, the Art Edition goes further still. Just 175 copies exist, each signed by Newson. In addition to everything included in the Collector's Edition, this version comes with a carbon fibre bookstand, also designed by Newson, which takes its sculptural cues from the keel of a racing yacht. Standing close to a metre tall and weighing 9.8 kg in total, it transforms the book into something closer to an exhibition piece.
Newson's design contribution across both limited editions is not merely decorative. It connects the physical object to the sport's obsession with performance and material innovation, a sensibility that sits naturally alongside Louis Vuitton, whose relationship with the America's Cup dates to 1983 and includes induction into the America's Cup Hall of Fame.
Nothing quite like this has been attempted for the Cup before. Where previous publications have tended toward race reports or season reviews, this book sets out to be definitive, honouring long-standing traditions while giving equal weight to the competition's evolution into a high-speed, high-finance spectacle of advanced marine engineering.
What makes the publication particularly compelling is the way it operates on two levels at once. As a historical record it documents victories, rivalries, and the personalities who shaped the competition across nearly two centuries. As an artistic object it uses design, scale, and materiality to communicate something of the Cup's character. Readers will find the drama behind the great results alongside an account of how the boats themselves changed, culminating in the foiling machines that seem to defy the physics of the water beneath them.
The America's Cup has always been defined by extremes, in talent, in rivalry, and in the relentless pursuit of technical advantage. This book shares that disposition. It is bold in scale, beautiful in execution, and constructed to endure in a way that reflects the competition's own values.
For those already immersed in the Cup's history, the book offers a chance to revisit defining moments with a depth and visual richness that no previous publication has matched. For anyone coming to the subject fresh, it is a fine entry point into the world's most storied yacht race. The three editions, made possible through the combined efforts of Louis Vuitton, TASCHEN, and Newson's design vision, represent something genuinely unusual: a tribute to a sporting competition that is as carefully crafted as the competition itself.
