To Win the Cup

Skipper Terry Hutchison is on a mission. The president of Sailing Operations for NYYC American Magic has won 11 sailing world championships but not the America’s Cup—five attempts, no victories. Hutchinson and American Magic are returning to Pensacola for another try.

Inweekly sat down with him to find out why and to learn about the challenges they face as they prepare for the 37th America’s Cup to be held in Barcelona, Spain, in October 2024.

“America’s Cup is seen as the pinnacle of our sport, and having not achieved the pinnacle of the sport yet, you keep wanting to pursue it,” said Hutchinson, explaining he wants to go to Barcelona.

He rattled off his previous America’s Cup competitions. “This is my sixth America’s Cup cycle. Started in 2000 with the St. Francis Yacht Club out of San Francisco and then in 2003 with Stars and Stripes out of San Diego. Then 2007 was with team New Zealand, and 2013 was with Artemis. And then 2021 was New York Yacht Club, American Magic, and back to the New York Yacht Club, American Magic for AC37.”

American Magic trained in Pensacola Bay for the 36th America’s Cup (AC36), only to lose in the semi-finals in New Zealand in January 2021. During the round-robin stage, their boat, Patriot, capsized when a gust of wind caught the sails, causing the leeward running backstay not to release and preventing the mainsail from being eased. Hutchinson was trapped under the sail and nearly drowned but was rescued by his crew. The Patriot suffered a large hole in the hull and almost sank. The team returned to racing in the semi-finals but was eliminated from the competition after four consecutive defeats.

Hutchinson and his team need to design and build their boat to fit the rules established by the AC36 winner, the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron.

“America’s Cup is a very unique competition because of the way the rules are written and the control that the Defender has over the event and really setting the guidelines for the rules,” he explained. “You have to design a fast boat, but you also have to navigate through the idiosyncrasies of a competition that’s heavily biased towards the person that writes the rule.”

Hutchinson said Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron “drip feed” the new rules to the competitors. In the 37th America’s Cup (AC37), competitors will be operating a much lighter boat with three fewer people and a foil arm that goes deeper in the water, creating the need to develop a completely new system.

However, the skipper wasn’t whining. Smiling, he said, “It’s just what it is. We’re still waiting to understand the availability of the bases for Barcelona, and so it’s really hard. But that’s the uniqueness of the competition.”

Hutchison is excited to return to Pensacola. “One of the really quality decisions we made in AC36 was to come here and train because the quality of the venue was so good.”

The great sailing conditions that Pensacola Bay offers are not the only reason for the team’s return. Hutchinson said that the community played a large part in their commitment to Pensacola. He and his team “could feel that the community really embraced American Magic and could see us as their unofficial sailing sports team.”

The boat is being designed. By mid-June, 32 containers will arrive at the Port of Pensacola with four chase boats and Patriot. Hutchison said, “Patriot will go into the shed in the port, and she’ll spend the summer inside getting retrofitted to some of the new systems and the new concepts inside the AC37 class rule. And then as we get further into September, once we get a good feel of hurricane season, we’ll build the tent, and we’ll be set up just in front of the Jacqueline.”

He added, “We’ll start sailing in Pensacola Bay in October of this year.”

Meanwhile, his team has begun to relocate to Pensacola. As many as 300 people will be working out of the Port of Pensacola as American Magic prepares for Barcelona. The sailors will be competing for positions on the boat.

“We’ve hired Tom Slingsby and Paul Goodison to be two of our helmsmen. Paul was a member of the AC36 team,” said Hutchison. “Riley Gibbs, who’s a young U.S Olympian, we’ve hired as a helmsman. And then we have a great supporting cast of sailors with Lucas Calabrese, Andrew Campbell, Michael Menninger and Dan Morris.”

He continued, “So really, some new, some old, but one of the unique features of the boat going forward is in AC36, we created power in the boat and did the grinding and the oil transfers with our hands. Here with three fewer people in the boat, we’re doing it with cyclists. And so we have a whole new system to develop there and a whole new athlete to develop.”

His team has been testing and interviewing young rowers, swimmers and cyclists. The skipper said, “They’re just incredible athletes. I mean, they’re beyond the normal athlete, so that side of it’s exciting.”

Hutchison and the American Magic Foundation have grander plans than winning AC37. He said, “The other side of our American Magic Foundation and the team is to really want to develop Olympic sailing and U.S sailing programs and help develop the younger generation of sailors. And Pensacola Bay, there truly are not any better spots in the country to do that.”

Hutchison added, “Pensacola Bay is beyond good. And the neat thing about here is that you have access to the gulf. You can sail inside the bay in flatter water, or you can go out into the gulf and have more of an ocean swell, which for this America’s Cup, outside the bay is probably going to be a little bit more relevant this time.”

Hutchison took a conservative approach when asked where he sees Pensacola Bay six years from now. “I think, at a very bare minimum, we want to have an AC world series event here in Pensacola. If American Magic is fortunate enough to win the America’s Cup, we want to have Pensacola put its foot forward to host the America’s Cup.”

He continued, “That’s not a small operation. The bay here is set up perfectly for an AC world series. The America’s Cup is a slightly different beast because you’re going to have teams that will move and live here for 18 months. And so you need to have the infrastructure that can support those types of operations—imagine seven teams with 350 team members, including the families per team. You need to build that out to accommodate, call it 3,000 people, and the boats and the equipment and everything that leads up to the boat going on the water, so that’s ambitious.”

However, he believes it’s “completely reasonable” to host the event but also other regattas and Olympic-style competitions.

Pointing to Pensacola Bay, Hutchison said, “If you start there, it’s actually not a field of dreams because you don’t have to build it. It’s already there. Now you just need everybody to come.”