With the America’s Cup World Series starting up again in late February, it’s a good time for an update on the competition format and schedule. The AC Event Authority made a flurry of announcements in December, giving dates for AC World Series events in Oman (27-28 February), New York (7-8 May) and Toulon (10-11 September). They expect to announce an Asian venue, presumably Tokyo, for a November regatta and a first quarter 2017 regatta, presumably in Bermuda. Chicago (11-12 June) and Portsmouth (23-24 July) were previously announced. A return to Gothenburg has been dropped. Given that the Protocol originally required the complete 2016 schedule to have been announced last August, setting up this series is clearly a difficult task.

The ACWS has fleet racing only, in one design AC45F foiling cats. Sunday races score double points, making a last place finish on Sunday as valuable as a first place on Saturday. Seems odd, but that’s the way it is. Emirates Team New Zealand currently tops the leaderboard, ahead of Land Rover BAR with Oracle in third. Artemis Racing, SoftBank Team Japan and Groupama Team France occupy places four to six, respectively. Each of the three regattas to date was won by a different team: BAR in Portsmouth, ETNZ in Gothenburg and Artemis in Bermuda. Notable by their absence is Oracle. Points from the remaining seven regattas will be combined with the three held in 2015. These regattas are not exhibitions or “friendlies.” The winner of the series carries two bonus points into the round robin; the runner up gets one bonus point. And ties at the end of the round robin will be broken by ACWS standings.

Match racing in the new 15 metre long America’s Cup Class boats begins with the round robin, officially the “America’s Cup Qualifiers.” The five challengers and defender Oracle all race in the round robin, which runs from 26 May to 5 June 2017 with a layday on 1 June. The winner of the round robin carries a bonus point into the America’s Cup Match. The lowest scoring challenger is eliminated. Remember that ties are broken by ACWS standings, so both the bonus point for the AC Match and the elimination of one challenger could come down to ACWS results. Think about this for a moment. A team could design the best AC Class yacht, go undefeated in the round robin and still lose the bonus point for the Match. If the winner of the ACWS loses only two races, to the undefeated team, both will finish the round robin with 10 points and the tie break mechanism will give the bonus point to the team that lost two races.

At the end of the round robin, four challengers advance to the “AC Playoffs,” formerly known as the Louis Vuitton Cup semi-finals and finals. These “playoffs” are “first to five.” Each pairing race three times per day, with no laydays, condensing the “playoff” into a maximum of six calendar days from 7-12 June. There has been no mention of the Louis Vuitton Cup trophy, so presumably that is not up for grabs and will remain with Emirates Team New Zealand, who won it in 2007 and 2013.

How many races do you need to win the America’s Cup? In the Match, beginning on 17 June 2017, the first team to score seven points wins, but they might need to win eight races. Why? The bonus point that goes to the winner of the round robin means that their opponent starts the Match at minus one. I’ll explain the “logic” for that below. Racing is scheduled for two successive weekends, 17-18 and 24-25 June, continuing Monday the 26^th and Tuesday the 27^th, if needed to decide the winner.

Do you have questions about that bonus point and the dates of the America’s Cup Match? The answer is: television. Specifically the US network NBC. The weekend of 17-18 June is Father’s Day in the US, when the final two rounds of the US Open golf tournament are played. When NBC lost the US Open to Fox Sports in 2015, it left a gap in their calendar. Originally planned to begin on 24 June 2017, as reported by Land Rover BAR’s Andy Claughton in the May 2015 Seahorse, the Match was moved up a week to suit NBC. Two races are scheduled each day for two successive weekends. With no weekday racing, if a team started with a bonus point of plus one, they would need only six race wins to score seven points and take the Cup, leaving NBC with nothing to show on Sunday 25 June. The negative bonus point ensures that the Cup cannot be decided before that date. It also increases the chances that the Cup will be decided on Sunday 25 June – great for the TV schedule. Fortunately the TV announcers have a year and a half to figure out how to explain all this.