A New Zealand skipper has landed the first invitation to next year's Congressional Cup, one of match racing's most storied events.
Long Beach Yacht Club has released the Notice of Race for the 62nd Congressional Cup, set for April 28 to May 2, 2027. Ahead of it, the Ficker Cup, a World Sailing Grade 2 event, runs April 23-25 and will send its top two finishers straight into the main event. Both are part of the 2027 World Match Racing Tour season, with the rest of the Tour schedule due in coming months.
Congressional Cup 2027 Chair Tom Camp awarded that first invitation to Josh Hyde, the Kiwi currently ranked No. 15 in the World Sailing Open Match Racing Rankings. Hyde sails out of the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron with Waitematā Racing, and he earned his spot as leading skipper in the 2026 US Grand Slam Series, a four-event Grade 2 series contested across Chicago, Detroit and Oyster Bay, New York. That series wrapped up on 4 September at Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club.
It caps a breakout year for the young skipper. Hyde won the Chicago Grand Slam for his first senior international match racing title, backed that up with fourth at the Detroit Cup and second at the Oakcliff International. He arrives with serious pedigree in the junior ranks too, with three consecutive Youth International Match Racing Cup titles and back-to-back Hardy Cup wins.
Skippers keen on invitations to either regatta can apply through the notice boards for each event.
Long Beach Yacht Club founded the Congressional Cup in 1965, and it's credited with pioneering the on-the-water umpiring now standard at match racing events worldwide. It was also a founding event of the World Match Racing Tour in 2000, and remains the only World Sailing Grade WC event in North America on the Tour. Winning it earns a skipper the famous Crimson Blazer, the sport's answer to the Masters Green Jacket.
The roll of past winners reads like a who's who of Olympic and America's Cup sailing. Ted Turner (USA), Dennis Conner (USA), Harold Cudmore (GBR), Peter Gilmour (AUS), Terry Hutchinson (USA), Francesco Bruni (ITA), Taylor Canfield (USA), Johnie Berntsson (SWE), Ian Williams (GBR), Chris Poole (USA) and Eric Monnin (SUI) have all held the title.
New Zealand's own contribution to that list is hard to ignore. Rod Davis, Chris Dickson, Gavin Brady and Dean Barker have all won the Crimson Blazer, a lineage Hyde now has the chance to join.
Racing is sailed in a fleet of Catalina 37 yachts off Belmont Pier, with some 300 volunteer members of Long Beach Yacht Club running the show each year. The three-day Ficker Cup and five-day Congressional Cup draw international fields to the same stretch of water in front of the pier, where spectators gather to watch the racing up close.
