The current holder of the America’s Cup, Emirates Team New Zealand, have named Nathan Outteridge as the skipper of their team and the man who will head up their Defence of the 38th America’s Cup.

The news comes after the team was unable to come to an agreement with 3 time winning skipper, Pete Burling earlier this year. It’s thought that Burling was not able to commit to demands surrounding how much of his time should be focused solely on America’s Cup racing in the build up to the next event.

The announcement was simply presented in social media posts by the team with the same short message on their website which reads:

The America’s Cup always ends on the water, but it always begins with a meeting of minds. This week the Emirates Team New Zealand core sailing team began plotting the strategy to defending the America’s Cup again in 2027.

Meet the core team so far:

Nathan Outteridge (Skipper)
Andy Maloney
Blair Tuke
Sam Meech
Chris Draper
More sailors to be announced in due course…

Emirares Team New Zealand’s Core Team. Photo: Hamish Hooper / Emirates Team New Zealand

Outteirdge was bought into the team ahead of the 2024 America’s Cup, with he and Burling sharing helming duties on the AC75 on the team’s march to victory. So he is far from a surprise selection to step up to the role of skipper.

Indeed consistency appears to be the key in most of the rest of the ‘core team’ announcement with long term and trusted Emirates Team New Zealand sailors, Blair Tuke, Andy Maloney, and Sam Meech all core members of the team for several cycles.

However, the final member of the core team – and a brand new signing for the Kiwis – is British sailor Chris Draper. Draper has a long history at the very top of the sport and in many ways his sailing resume is not dissimilar to that of Outteridge.

Draper was a formidable Olympic 49er sailor picking up a bronze and silver medal. He has plenty of America’s Cup experience too, albeit always with teams who were unlikely to challenge for the trophy itself.

In 2013 he was a key member of Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli’s late challenge and then in 2017 he was the tactiacian onboard the Dean Barker skippered Softbank Team Japan. Since then he has headed up and been a key member of a number of SailGP teams.

The inclusion of a British sailor on the key sailing group could well signal a relaxation of the strict nationality rules of the previous cycle, which are said to disliked by a number of the smaller and newer teams, preventing them buying up talent to accelerate their learnings.

We will not know if that is the case until the 38th America’s Cup protocol is officially released, which is currently under discussion between Cup Defender, Emirates Team New Zealand and challenger of Record, Ben Ainslie’s Athena Racing.

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