American sailing team Riptide Racing won’t be on the start line for the 38th America’s Cup. The team confirmed on 31 March that it had run out of time to finalise its funding, despite getting closer to the entry line than most people expected.
In a statement from skipper and CEO Chris Poole, the team was frank about what happened: the money was nearly there, the conversations were happening, but four months was simply not a long enough runway to tie it all together.
“Although we achieved significant commitments from financial backers and partners, we ran out of time to line everything up for the 38th America’s Cup,” Poole wrote.
The challenge had been announced just four months before the withdrawal — a window most in the sailing world would consider laughably short. The America’s Cup Partnership gave the team a lifeline in January, granting a two-month extension to keep sponsor talks alive. It bought time, but not quite enough.
“Very few have the ability, vision, and determination like Chris to look at that timeline and pieces they had before them and say ‘Yes, it is possible.'”
— Commodore Julian P. Fisher II, Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club
Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club, the team’s home club, wasn’t ready to write off the effort. Commodore Julian P. Fisher II backed Poole publicly, saying the club couldn’t be more proud — and that what Poole had attempted took a rare kind of nerve.
Poole, for his part, isn’t treating this as a full stop. The connections made — with sponsors, potential partners, and the broader Cup community — are now the starting point for a tilt at the 39th edition. With that cycle kicking off in roughly a year, the work starts almost immediately.
“We look forward to sharing our progress as we look to the 39th America’s Cup in 2029,” he wrote.
For Kiwi fans, it’s one fewer challenger to watch in the 38th — but if Poole means what he says, Riptide Racing could be back in the mix before long. The 2029 cycle is going to be an interesting one to watch.
