The fifth team, which in 2021 will try to take the new Zealand Emirates Team New Zealand the title of Champions of the America’s Cup, was the Stars & Stripes Team USA of the American yacht club of long beach (state of California).
Now in its 36th America’s Cup will involve teams from both coasts of the USA: Stars & Stripes Team USA — from the East and Magic of the American yacht club of new York from the West.
“We are proud that this competition will involve two American teams. United States — a country with outstanding traditions in yachting and expertise, especially when we are talking about the America’s Cup,” — said the CEO of Emirates Team New Zealand Grant Dalton (Grant Dalton).
Loyalty to tradition is indeed reflected in the name the California team.
“The name of our team is a tribute to the campaign, Stars & Stripes , Dennis Connor (Dennis Conner), to which the Cup for decades, remained in America. We are the new generation,” explained team co-founder Mike Buckley (Mike Buckley).
Together with the Buckley team will deal with the former world champion in a match-flight, Taylor Canfield (Canfield Taylor), who was the winner of this title three times in the last five years and is a four-time winner of the Cup Congress.
“My whole life, my professional goal was to participate in the America’s Cup. I’m sure we will be very competitive when we get to Auckland in 2021”, said Canfield.
CEO of Stars & Stripes was Justin Schaeffer (Justin Shaffer), whose career is tied to major League baseball and Facebook. In sailing he has experience in the TP52. Chief operating officer team appointed Todd Reynolds (Tod Reynolds) who participated in a series of America’s Cup in Chicago in 2016. As the main consultant is Melinda Erkelens (Melinda Erkelens) — a true “veteran”, who participated in five campaigns of the America’s Cup. The chief designer of the team is JB brown (JB Braun), who worked with the Champions Cup Oracle Team USA in 2013 and 2017.
The team has already started the construction in Michigan of his version of the AC75.
Stars & Stripes became the second approved by the team of eight who filed “late claim”. The first 6 of December the fleet was joined Altus Challenge the Royal Malta yacht club Malta. Also the competition will be attended by the Italian team Luna Rossa and Team UK’s British INEOS. As previously reported, due to the fact that new Zealand is Auckland, which will host the competition, it may only take five teams of applicants, most likely, the remaining six teams that submitted “late application” will fail this time to participate in competitions.
Shortly before the submission deadline for applications Dutch magazine Zeilen (“Sailing”) reported that one of the candidates can become the team from the Netherlands under the leadership of the AkzoNobel Team skipper (Volvo Ocean Race 2017-2018) Thienpont Simeon (Simeon Tienpont). However, it is unclear whether this intention is really implemented.
