The 52 SUPER SERIES will open Land Rover BAR’s challenge for the 36th America’s Cup. The team today announced that Sir Ben Ainslie will lead his team aboard Tony Langley’s Gladiator in one of the world’s leading high performance monohull race series.
On September 29th, Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) confirmed that their defence of the 36th America’s Cup in Auckland will take place in monohull boats, and not the multihulls of the last two editions of sport’s toughest contest.
The full details of the new boats are expected to be unveiled on 31st March 2018, and they will not be available to race next season. In the meantime, the Challenger teams will look to develop their monohull sailing skills, which are significantly different to those required for the foiling catamarans raced in the 35th America’s Cup.
Tony Langley will continue at the helm of Gladiator, a role he has maintained since 2012. The team tied the latest event in Mahón this month, scoring equal points to the 2017 SUPER SERIES champions, Azzurra, only losing out on the regatta victory on a tie-break.
Land Rover BAR have already said that they will contest the 36th America’s Cup in Auckland, after reaching the challenger semi-finals for the 35th Cup in Bermuda this summer, losing to Emirates Team New Zealand, the eventual winner and the new holder of the trophy.
Ainslie comments:
“The return to monohull racing for the America’s Cup means that the 52 SUPER SERIES will be great racing for our sailing team. We are delighted to be working with Tony Langley, he is one of the biggest supporters of British sailing and this will give us a unique opportunity to return to the subtleties of monohull sailing at an extremely high level. This allows not just our sailing team, but also our design and performance teams to start developing our tools and methodology as we begin our 36th America’s Cup campaign.”
Source: Land Rover BAR
