Will the inaugural women's America's Cup pave the way for female sailors to compete for the Auld Mug? Team NZ can see the path clearly, Suzanne McFadden discovers.
Elise Beavis could have been a real contender for New Zealand’s first women’s America’s Cup crew, as a world champion sailor in her own right.
She has, in fact, won two world titles in the single-handed foiling Waszp and is New Zealand’s latest female sailor of the year. But as a performance engineer for Emirates Team New Zealand, Beavis sees her talents better employed elsewhere.
Like ensuring Team NZ’s AC75 race yacht reaches its full potential in their America’s Cup defence in Barcelona next year. And finding the right crews for both the women’s and youth America’s Cup events, also being sailed in Barcelona.
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“A lot of people have talked to me about [sailing],” Beavis says. “But I see these women’s and youth teams as finding the next generation of talent to sail on the America’s Cup boat.
“I did well on the Waspz boat internationally [winning world titles in 2019 and 2022] but I don’t see myself at the Pete Burling-Blair Tuke level of sailing. That’s not a career for me.
“What I can offer most to the team is the technical side of racing, performance analysis, to really help win the Cup itself. And if we hadn’t won it, would there even be a women’s America’s Cup?”
Elise Beavis sailing in the Australian Waszp championships in January
That could well be true. It was Auld Mug holders Team NZ and the Challenger of Record, INEOS Britannia, who wrote the inaugural women’s event into the 37th America’s Cup protocol – declaring every team had to have a women’s and youth crew in 2024.
And with other yacht clubs from around the globe entering teams, there will be an impressive 12 women’s crews in identical AC40s lining up at the startline off the Barcelona beachfront in October next year. That's twice the size of the America's Cup fleet.
A talented young sailor who competed at the 2010 Youth Olympics, Beavis always dreamed of joining Team NZ - but in a role off the water. She’s been there since 2015, when she left the University of Auckland with an engineering degree and took up an internship in their design team.
She’s been instrumental in the team’s America’s Cup victories since then, running the team’s simulator – so sailors can hone their skills off the water - and she’s a regular sight on the Hauraki Gulf, on board the Team NZ chase boat tracking the data pouring off their race boats.
“I’m doing what I know I can do best and playing to my strengths,” she says.
Women have featured fleetingly in America’s Cups past. Kiwi Leslie Egnot was helmswoman of the first all-women’s crew, America3, in the 1995 Cup defender trials. Engineer Maury Leyland became the only woman to sail on a New Zealand boat, in one race in the 1995 challenger series.
Dawn Riley led a co-ed crew, America True, in the 2000 challenger series in Auckland. In Valencia, 2007, Alicia Ageno was navigator for the Swedish challenger.
Now the women’s America’s Cup event is being promoted as a steppingstone for female sailors to return to the Cup proper. (There is a proven pathway - four of the crew who won the Youth America's Cup in 2013 are now the core of Team NZ's sailing team).
The women’ regatta has just picked up its own naming rights partner – Spanish beauty and fashion company, Puig. And the event has been given prominence in the Cup calendar, with the finals series raced between flights of the America’s Cup match in October next year.
Experienced Team NZ sailor Josh Junior, leading the crew selection process with Beavis, reckons it won't be long before women are on board the AC75s – with the foiling monohull offering more opportunities.
“The controlling roles on an America’s Cup boat aren’t that physical now,” he says.
“So to have 12 teams, each with four or five women - and then more in the youth teams - we’ve got a lot of female sailors getting America’s Cup experience. And eventually they’ll become the best sailors – and the best sailors always end up on Cup teams.”
With all six America’s Cup syndicates required to have crews racing in both the women’s and youth events, invitations drew a further six entries from yacht clubs in Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Canada and Australia.
They’ll compete in the flighty, fast AC40 foiling monohull, now being used as a testing boat by the America’s Cup teams. Most nations are well on the way to selecting their women and youth crews.
Sweden’s ‘Wings’ women’s matchracing team, headed by two-time world champion Anna Östling, have been chosen to contest the women’s event - enlisting the help of Kiwi skipper and Christchurch Sail GP winner, Phil Robertson, who lives in Gothenberg.
Alinghi, making their return to the Cup, have had 91 Swiss sailors apply. Top dinghy sailor and professional cyclist, Isabella Bertold, will lead the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club entry.
Team Australia Challenge hold their selection trials this month, but they’ve named their skippers – dual Olympic silver medallists Olivia Price and Nina Curtis to lead the campaign.
“It is a long-held dream we both shared from a young age,” Curtis says. “The America’s Cup was written into our national psyche when Australia II rewrote history and John Bertrand’s team won it off the USA. It’s pretty exciting to think we could now help write a new chapter in Australia’s sailing and America’s Cup history.”
Applications for the two Team NZ crews close this Friday, and they’re happy with the stream of candidates received so far. “They're from quite diverse backgrounds, but it's really interesting to see how many are doing well in sailing, and now have a professional sailing career ahead of them, which wasn’t there five or 10 years ago," Beavis says.
We're now seeing women racing on SailGP boats, and the Liv Mackay-skippered Live Ocean mixed-gender crew in the ETF26 foiling cats series.
There’s no mandate to include female sailors in the youth teams, but Team NZ has invited young yachtswomen to try out. Youth sailors must be over 18 and under 25, but age isn’t a barrier to the women’s crew.
Sailing proficiency must be high, though, to master these smaller AC40s that take only four crew – one driver and one trimmer sitting on each side of the boat. There's no need for grinders or cyclors to generate power; there's no one running across the deck.
“You can’t just have two hotshot sailors and two just going for a ride - you won’t be able to get around the racecourse,” Beavis says.
But other factors, like leadership and teamwork, will come into play when the selection panel decides on the eight contenders for each team who’ll spend a week at Team NZ’s Auckland base, tested on skills including simulator sailing, team participation and attitude.
“It’s a four-person boat where everyone needs to communicate really well, so working as a team is important,” Beavis says. “And the ability to learn quickly – these boats are very different to what any of them have sailed before.” Their motivation to be part of Team NZ is also a factor.
Before Christmas, five women and five youth sailors will be finalised for Barcelona - and they’ll work with Team NZ in the New Year. Beavis will teach them to use the simulator.
“We want to upskill them quickly, but teach them all we can about these boats,” Junior says. “It’s great for us as a team to bring new people in and to keep growing.
“I think we’re in an amazing position to win both events. New Zealand has such a strong sailing history, and we’re really excited to see all these talented female and youth sailors coming through.
“Seeing women racing on the America’s Cup stage is going to be pretty spectacular.”
* DISCLAIMER: The author of this story is on the seven-person selection panel for Team NZ's women's and youth crews.
