The America’s Cup entries – both actual and probable – are stretching their sea-legs on their AC40 boats.
‘Probable’ entry Luna Rossa sailed one of their AC40 earlier in 2025 and have followed that with a two-boat outing in October.
Sailing the two AC40s together is deducted from the 35 sailing days allowed by the AC38 Protocol.
The other ‘probable’ entry, the French K-Challenge team are believed to have sailed their AC40, and have just released the final part of a three-part video reviewing their AC37 challenge.
Which while plagued with technical problems showed remarkable flashes of ability for such a limited campaign.
America’s Cup Defender, Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) has also been sailing.
In mid October the Kiwis launched their AC40 for its first official sail under the AC38 Protocol rules, and have followed that recently with four days of sailing on the Hauraki Gulf.
This seems to have been a shake-down series for their new team members, and highlights their early progress.
The time allowed sailing two AC40 together is controlled by the AC38 Protocol and limited to 35 days between 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026, and a further 35 days from 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027.
Note that missing in action is the Challenger of Record, Ben Ainslie’s Athena Racing team.
Although a named entry, the last known location of the British AC75 (RB3) was the shed in Barcelona following defeat in the final of the AC37 event.
Ainslie is believed to have funding available to continue his challenge for AC38, but has not been forthcoming on any details of his plans for the redesign/rebuild of RB3.
There are no official Recon Teams for this early sailing in AC40s. That will only restart when they roll-out their (reworked) AC75s, which is only allowed after the 15 January 2026.
AC75 sailing is limited to 45 Sailing Days from 15 January 2026 until 14 January 2027 and a further 45 days from 15 January 2027 until the date of the first race in the Final Preliminary Regatta.
