Red Sea shipping delays: Team NZ AC40 caught up, hope youth and women’s America’s Cup teams will be on water in March

Team New Zealand won the America's Cup preliminary regatta in Jeddah. Photo / America's Cup

War in the Middle East – where Houthi militants are attacking ships linked to Israel in response to that country’s attacks on Gaza – has stalled progress for Team New Zealand’s youth and women’s America’s Cup teams, with their AC40 held up by shipping delays in the Red Sea.

Team New Zealand’s America’s Cup team competed on the one-design AC40 – a scaled-down version of the AC75 foiling monohull – in the second preliminary regatta in Jeddah in early December. It was the final time this cycle that the six America’s Cup teams would race in the one-design boats.

While they have their LEQ12 testing vessel in Auckland, the AC40 is the boat in which the youth and women’s teams will compete in Barcelona later this year.

As a result of delays in getting the boat out of Jeddah, Team New Zealand chief operating officer Kevin Shoebridge told the Herald the crews would be getting on the water later than they had anticipated.

“We’ve managed to get ourselves a little bit entangled in the Red Sea issue, so struggled to get our boats as quickly as we thought through the Red Sea out of Jeddah,” Shoebridge said.

Shipping has been heavily disrupted in the area over the last couple of months due to attacks by Houthi militants, who are based in Yemen. The rebel group has said it is targeting ships which are Israeli-owned, flagged or operated or are travelling to Israeli ports, in response to Israel’s attack on Gaza.

However, the BBC reports many of the vessels targeted have had no connection with Israel and several attacks have been thwarted by US-led naval forces.

The US and UK have carried out co-ordinated air strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen twice this month in direct response to the attacks on ships in the Red Sea, and this week the New Zealand Government confirmed a six-member Defence Force team would be sent to help the efforts in protecting shipping.

For Team New Zealand, it’s a waiting game before getting their two new teams out on the water, but Shoebridge estimated their AC40 would be home at the end of the summer.

Team New Zealand won an entertaining America's Cup preliminary regatta in Jeddah. Photo / America's Cup

“That’s probably going to be looking like March, then we’ll have them out on the water training here,” he said.

“But there’s a lot of pre-training which will go on via the simulator prior to all that anyway.”

Team New Zealand confirmed the line-ups for their five-strong youth and women’s teams just before Christmas, after holding trials earlier in the year.

Veerle Ten Have, Seb Menzies, Leo Takahashi, Oscar Gunn and Josh Armit will compete in the youth regatta, which runs from September 17 to 26, before Liv Mackay, Jo Aleh, Erica Dawson, Molly Meech and Gemma Jones race in the women’s event from October 5 to 13.

Unlike the America’s Cup, which will feature six teams and be contested in a match racing format, the youth and women’s regattas will have 12 teams and largely be fleet races.

The fleet in each is split into two groups of six boats for an eight-race opening series before the top six teams move on to a four-race semifinal. The top two boats will then compete in a one-off match race to find a winner.

In the youth regatta, that race will take place between the first two races of the America’s Cup challenger series final, while the women’s final will be run between races three and four of the America’s Cup match.

Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.