Australia's pursuit of the oldest trophy in international sport has moved a significant step forward, with the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron accepting a challenge from the Royal Prince Edward Yacht Club. Team Australia's entry brings the Louis Vuitton 38th America's Cup field to seven challengers, making the Naples fleet the largest assembled since Valencia hosted the event in 2007.
The team's leadership draws together some of the most recognised names in Australian sailing. Tom Slingsby, an Olympic gold medallist and two-time World Sailor of the Year, takes the role of Head of Sailing. Glenn Ashby serves as Head of Performance and Design, bringing three Cup wins and the distinction of being a confirmed inductee to the America's Cup Hall of Fame later this year. Completing the senior leadership is Chief Executive Grant Simmer, whose connection to the trophy stretches back to 1983, when he was aboard Australia II as she ended the New York Yacht Club's 132-year winning streak.
Financial backing for the campaign comes from John Winning and family, who supported Australian entries in both the Youth and Women's America's Cup in Barcelona in 2024.
Simmer has been present at every America's Cup since the early 1980s, including the event Australia hosted in Fremantle. He said the chance to unite Australian talent under a single flag was the foundation on which the campaign had been built. Slingsby counts backer Herman Winning as a close friend of more than 30 years and described representing Australia with a genuinely Australian team as a long-held career ambition. Ashby, who spent much of his Cup career without an Australian entry to call home, was direct about what had made the challenge possible, saying it had come together only because of the Winning family's willingness to back it.
With their entry confirmed, Team Australia will take a seat on the America's Cup Partnership board. ACP Chairman and Emirates Team New Zealand CEO Grant Dalton welcomed the team, observing that antipodean sailing has a habit of producing the best in the Cup. He indicated his expectation that they will be on the start line in Naples in the summer of 2027.
Two rule changes define the 38th Cup. For the first time in the event's history, every AC75 crew must include at least one female sailor in each race. The fleet will also transition to battery-powered systems, a shift designed to place greater weight on skill, strategy and flight control, while strengthening the pathway between the Youth and Women's programmes and the senior fleet.
Team Australia sailor Tash Bryant said both changes represented an important moment for visibility and opportunity in elite sailing.
