In 1851, a boat named America won the 100 Guinea Cup given to the winner of a race around the Isle of Wight. The winners, members of the New York Yacht Club, donated the trophy to the Club, to be held as a ‘challenge’ trophy. Thus was born the America’s Cup, named after the boat, not the country.
Do the current points and rankings count for anything yet?
Yes they do. Challengers earn ‘Bonus Points’ based on their ranking in the Louis Vuitton Acts. These ‘Bonus Points’ will be added to each challenger’s score in the Louis Vuitton Cup, improving its chances of advancing forward and winning the right to meet the Defender.
The Defender is the Yacht Club currently holding the America’s Cup, in this case the Société Nautique de Genève (SNG), and its team, Alinghi.
Challengers are the teams representing Yacht Clubs who have challenged the SNG in an attempt to win the Cup.
What is the difference between the “Acts” and the Louis Vuitton Cup?
All teams (Challengers and Defender) participate in the Acts, training and getting stronger through competition against each other until the final Act, in April 2007.
Only the Challengers fight for the Louis Vuitton Cup in 2007.
The winning Challenger earns the right to race against the Defender in the 32nd America’s Cup Match.
Often described as the oldest trophy in sport, the America's Cup has become an obsession for some of the most famous, powerful, and exceedingly eccentric characters in the world. The America's Cup transcends mere sport; rather, it is a story of adventure, ambition, innovation, creativity, fame and competition.
One Kiwi sailor, Tom Schnackenberg, described it like this:
"The America's Cup is a microcosm of the world. It's real and it's gripping and you can enjoy it on all sorts of levels - at a managerial level, because it's quite complex, from a sporting point of view, from trying to understand mother nature, whether the weather or the waves, or trying to understand the physics of the boats. It's a war game, and the boats are beautiful.
