The round robin “America’s Cup Qualifiers” begin in Bermuda on 26 May 2017 – less than a year away. As usual in Cup campaigns, time is a precious commodity and the teams have several priorities to juggle between now and the beginning of racing.

The most visible activity is the America’s Cup World Series. The final regatta of the series has now been announced for Fukuoka, Japan in November. The first quarter 2017 event that ACEA talked about appears to have been dropped. To the casual observer the AC45F catamarans look pretty much like the boats that will be racing in Bermuda in 2017. But fleet racing in these strict one design boats with stored energy to power the hydraulics bears little resemblance to the match racing we’ll see in very different yachts in 2017. At this writing, we’ve had six AC World Series events… and four of them have lost a full day from the racing schedule for too much wind (Portsmouth) or too little (Bermuda, New York and Chicago). Three teams have each won two events: series leader Emirates Team New Zealand, Land Rover BAR and Artemis Racing. No team has been on the podium at every event – the Kiwis and Oracle both got pushed off the podium for the first time in Chicago. Oracle has yet to win an event. This racing is much more important than many realize. Not only are there bonus points to be carried into the round robin – two for the winner of the series and one for the runner-up – the series results will be used to break ties at the end of the round robin. If you take into account the possible effects of AC World Series results, a team could go undefeated in the round robin and still lose the the Qualifiers and the one point lead that the winner of the Qualifiers will carry into the Match!

Away from the AC World Series, designing the 15 metre long largely one design AC Class boats has top priority. Hulls, crossbeams and wing shape are fixed. Design work is focused on daggerboards and rudders, aerodynamics, control systems and wing structure, which is closely related to the wing control system. Oracle, Artemis and Land Rover BAR have all sailed with AC Class wings in their test boats; Japan will get a wing design from their “cousins” at Oracle. France and New Zealand better get wing structure and wing control systems right on the first try – the schedule is getting pretty tight if they need to make major modifications to the wing controls after initial tests.  Those two teams have yet to launch their test boats, although France should splash theirs before you read this. What are the Kiwis up to? They may be far behind the other teams in development work. Or they may just be much more careful about tipping their hand than they were in the last Cup cycle when they showed off foiling in their AC72 while some of the team leadership thought they should have tried to keep it secret longer. Oracle has built three test boats, one of which was sold to Japan. Artemis has built two. BAR built two new boats “T2” and “T3”; their “T1” test boat used a standard AC45 platform, unmodified in dimensions and layout. “T2” is now a museum piece in the “Tech Deck” public space at their Portsmouth headquarters. “T3” is the development boat. Rumours have circulated about a fourth BAR test boat. Originally the Protocol limited teams to three test boats, but that limitation was dropped by an amendment. Cost control anyone? Oracle, Japan, Artemis and BAR have a lot of experience sailing boats that are very similar to what they will be racing in 2017. Oracle, Japan and Artemis have the added advantage of being able to sail and test together in Bermuda.

Everyone needs to be building their 2017 race yacht… right about now. The AC Class race boats can be launched on 27 December, 150 days before the first races of the AC Qualifiers. Oracle, Japan and Artemis will undoubtedly do final assembly and launch at their well-established bases in Bermuda. What about the other three? If they launch in their home waters they will probably lose around 30 of their 150 development days while they disassemble the yacht, ship it to Bermuda and then put it back together. BAR’s Bermuda base should be complete in time for them to launch there if they so chose. France’s base could also be ready, but their limited budget may mean staying in L’Orient longer to save money. The Kiwis may have an interesting challenge: their base is planned for the new reclaimed land in Dockyard’s South Basin. If that area is not ready in December, the team would need to operate from a temporary site in Bermuda while waiting for their base in Dockyard. The alternative appears to be launching in Auckland, then losing development and training days during transit.

Lots to do. Not all that many days left in which to do it.