The New York Yacht Club: American Muscle

The New York Yacht Club has an unrivaled association with yachting’s oldest and most prestigious trophy—the America’s Cup.

This article was written by Justin Chisholm. Photography courtesy of American Magic.

No other yacht club in the world can match the NYYC’s track record in the 173-year-old international competition, which began back in 1851 when the NYYC schooner America won the 100 Guinea Cup by defeating a fleet of 15 British yachts from England’s Royal Yacht Squadron in a race around the Isle of Wight.

America’s owners renamed the 14-kilogram, 1.1-meter-high, ornate solid silver claret jug built by royal jewelers Garard as the “America’s Cup” and bequeathed the trophy to the NYYC to be awarded to the winner of a new international challenge regatta aimed at promoting “friendly competition” between yacht clubs around the world.

The NYYC successfully defended the trophy for the first time in 1857 when the American yacht Magic won a race in New York Harbour against a 17-boat fleet that included the British challenger Cambria, which finished eighth.

Magic’s victory sparked the NYYC’s sensational 132-year winning streak that saw the club successfully defend the America’s Cup a further 24 times, before losing it to Australia’s Royal Perth Yacht Club in 1983.

Although after this shock defeat, the New York club appeared to lose all interest in yachting’s premiere event, the San Diego Yacht Club won the Cup back for the US in 1987 and successfully defended it in 1988 and 1992, before losing it once again in 1995.

15 years later, the Golden Gate Yacht Club brought the ancient trophy back to American soil once again and went on to defend it with a memorable fightback win in 2013, but lost it again in 2017.

The New York Yacht Club’s 38-year hiatus from the America’s Cup ended in 2021 with a challenge under the name “NYYC American Magic” for the 36th edition staged in Auckland, New Zealand.

Backing for the New York team came from three prominent and highly successful American businessmen: Doug Devos (co-chairman of Amway), Hap Fauth (founder and chairman of Churchill Companies), and Roger Penske (founder and chairman of Penske Corporation).

Despite being well funded, with a top design team and a crew made up of some of the world’s best professional sailors, the challenge was ultimately unsuccessful, with the American syndicate becoming the first of the three international challengers to be eliminated from the Prada Cup Challenger Selection Series.

Now, though, the American team is back for another tilt at bringing the America’s Cup back to the United States with a challenge for the 37th America’s Cup taking place in Barcelona, Spain over the summer and autumn of 2024.

This time, the campaign is funded in the main by just DeVos and Fauth who, aside from their considerable business acumen, are both highly accomplished competitive yachtsmen in their own right.

DeVos is the major shareholder in the leading global sailmaker Quantum Sails and skipper of the highly successful Quantum Racing team seven-time winners of the TP52 World Championship.

Fauth is the founder and skipper of the Bella Mente sailing team which, as well as winning the 2006 Newport to Bermuda Race and the 2011 Transpac Race, has won their division at the prestigious Maxi Yacht World Championship on three occasions.

According to insiders, American Magic’s early exit from the last America’s Cup sparked a long and brutally honest debrief on where the campaign went wrong. As a result, significant changes have been made throughout the team, aimed at ensuring a better outcome for its second campaign.

The illustrious American yachtsman Terry Hutchinson an 11-time world champion, Louis Vuitton Cup winner, and twice-named Rolex Yachtsman of the Year was retained as skipper and president of sailing operations.

DeVos and Fauth have beefed up the team’s C-level management team with the introduction of Mike Cazer chief executive officer of the DeVos family investment firm Continuum who took over as American Magic CEO, freeing up Hutchinson to concentrate on his main area of expertise.

The American team has also gone in a different direction on the design side too, replacing Spain’s Marcelino Botín with American two-time America’s Cup-winning naval architect Scott Ferguson as design coordinator.

In the sailing team, British Olympic gold medallist Paul Goddison moves up from mainsail trimmer in the last campaign to helmsman this time around. Goodison is paired in the helming role alongside the Australian-born newcomer Tom Slingsby.

As well as also being an Olympic gold medal winner, Slingsby was part of the ORACLE Team USA 2013 America’s Cup-winning team, a three-time Rolex Sailor of the Year winner, and three consecutive-season winning skipper on the SailGP high-performance global sailing league.

Commenting on the club’s decision to mount a second consecutive America’s Cup campaign, commodore Paul M. Zabetakis had this to say at the time of the announcement back in January 2022.

“While the result in Auckland was not what we had hoped for, skipper Terry Hutchinson and the entire team were tremendous ambassadors for the Club and displayed exemplary sportsmanship throughout the campaign.

“The America’s Cup remains the highest peak in sailing and one of the most difficult challenges in the world of sport. The lessons learned during our previous campaign, combined with American Magic’s physical and intellectual assets and a commitment to multiple cycles, will ensure this challenge a strong chance to claim sailing’s ultimate prize.”

While the inner workings of this or any other America’s Cup team remain a closely kept secret and well hidden from outsiders, it is not hard to see that this second iteration of American Magic is much improved compared to the one that crashed out early in Auckland.

In September 2023, the team made a strong statement to the rest of the field about the quality of its sailing squad by winning the first preliminary regatta of the 37th America’s Cup cycle.

That regatta, held in Vilanova i La Geltrú, Spain, was raced in identical AC40 yachts 40-foot scaled-down versions of the full-size 75-foot-long AC75s that the teams must each design and build to race in Barcelona later in 2024.

Although the victory did not score the team any points in the America’s Cup itself, according to co-helmsman Slingsby, it gave the team a major confidence boost.

However, as the US team knows all too well, the road to lifting the America’s Cup is a long and hard one that for most is paved with crushing disappointment. Success in this 37th edition as always hinges on designing and building a boat that is at least as fast as your competitors.

“We are on that journey,” Slingsby commented at the beginning of 2024 eight months ahead of the start of the two months of intense racing in Barcelona this autumn that will determine the winner of the 37th America’s Cup.

“I think, as a team, we have done everything that we feel we could have to this point. Now we are just going to have to see if we have a fast enough boat when it hits the water. That will be the defining moment.”

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