AC75 design set to provide huge challenge for sailors, race great says

If America’s Cup sailors were looking for more of a challenge on the water, the 2021 regatta will give them one, event great Grant Simmer says.

Simmer, who was part of four America’s Cup-winning crews including Australia II’s victory in 1983, has joined British team Ben Ainslie Racing as cheif executive for the next regatta after two campaigns with Oracle Team USA.

The design for the yachts to be raced in the 2021 event having been public knowledge for about three months, with teams set to race AC75 vessels – 75ft high performance, fully-foiling monohulls.

Speaking to the World Sailing Show, Simmer said the new class of yacht could provide the sailors with one of the biggest challenges in recent Cup history.

“It’ll be really challenging for the sailors to sail them. They’ve just never sailed a boat like that before.

“We’ve been looking at what boats we should focus on sailing just for our sailors to get used to sailing a boat like the new America’s Cup class, and really we haven’t found anything.”

The concept for the vessel was constructed over a four-month period by designers from Emirates Team New Zealand in conjunction with Luna Rossa.

With the design moving away from the spectator-friendly AC50 catamarans sailed in the 2017 regatta, there were concerns that the monohull design would affect the speed of the vessels.

Simmer said that wasn’t the case, with the yachts having the potential to be faster than the catamarans.

When the design was unveiled, Team New Zealand chief executive Grant Dalton said there had been analysis done to gauge how fast the vessels would travel.

“Our analysis of the performance of the foiling monohulls tells us that once the boat is up and foiling, the boat has the potential to be faster than an AC50 both upwind and downwind.”

The AC75 class rule will be published in March, with entries for challengers closing at the end of June.