The new America's Cup cycle gets under way in mid-January, with the return of the Joint Reconnaissance programme set to bring the opening AC75 training days into public view almost as soon as they begin.
The Cup closed out 2025 with a sense of mounting anticipation, and that tension finds its first real outlet on 16 January, the earliest date on which teams are permitted to sail their modified AC75s under the Naples 2027 rule set. No racing is imminent, but this date marks something concrete: the shift from design work conducted behind closed doors to boats moving on water, observed and documented in real time.
Prior to that window opening, teams have kept themselves sharp through AC40 programmes. Emirates Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa each ran two-boat training sessions late last year, while Athena Racing pursued its development focus in Barcelona, putting Youth and Women's squads through their paces. That groundwork now gives way to a considerably more demanding challenge: integrating heavily revised boats with new crew formats and entirely reworked onboard systems.
Those first days on the water will be cautious by necessity. The AC75 configuration has changed substantially, with cyclors removed and battery-powered systems introduced in their place. Teams are also adjusting to a five-sailor format, meaning every task on board, from sail handling to energy management, has been redistributed. Early sessions will be less about raw speed and more about building reliability, refining communication, and establishing role clarity across the new crew structure.
The moment an AC75 clears the dock, the scale of what becomes visible changes considerably. The Joint Reconnaissance programme activates as soon as boats are on the water, with dedicated two-person Recon units assigned to document activity both at sea and around team base areas. Footage feeds into a shared cloud system accessible to all competing teams as well as selected media, and for those following the Cup from outside the compounds, Recon becomes the primary means of understanding what is actually happening during this most guarded phase of the campaign.
Throughout January, that Recon footage will do much of the storytelling. Deck layouts, the movement of crew between positions, and the visible choices teams make around systems management will offer the first genuine signals of how each challenger and defender is approaching the new cycle.
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