Sailing: Structure confirmed for Women's and Youth America's Cup regattas

The Women's and Youth America's Cup regattas will be contested on AC40 vessels. Photo: Supplied/America's Cup

The first women's America's Cup will be a 12-team affair, with the structure of the regatta now revealed.

The Notice of Race was released on Friday, confirming the schedules for the women's and youth America's Cup – both of which will be contested on the AC40 boats, currently being developed and tested by the syndicates.

The vessels are a half-scale, one-design version of the full America's Cup yacht, with a crew of four sailors.

While the youth America's Cup has been a feature of previous campaigns – including in 2013 when the likes of Blair Tuke and Peter Burling guided New Zealand home – it was not included in the most recent edition of the Cup, raced in Auckland.

The addition of a women's regatta breaks new ground for the event, as it will be the first time such a contest has been held.

All teams competing in the America's Cup must enter a team into the women's and youth regattas, meaning New Zealand will have representation, with invited yacht clubs from around the world making up the rest of the fleet.

In a bid to make the events as global as possible, only one entry is allowed per nation. The confirmed America's Cup teams will compete in one group, with the invited clubs in another.

Each group will race a qualifying series of fleet races, consisting of three races per day over three days to produce the top three podium teams from each group.

Those teams will then move forward to a final series made up of four fleet races, taking place on one day, which will see two top teams emerge.

Those two teams advance to the final – which will be a single match race to determine the winner. The women's and youth America's Cup regattas will follow the same schedule.

The regattas will run sequentially in Barcelona, with the youth competition starting on September 19, 2024 and the women's America's Cup on October 3. Both series begin with a week of practice for the teams.

The Youth America's Cup final will be run on the same day as the showpiece America's Cup challenger final on October 2, while the Women's America's Cup final will be held on October 16, the date scheduled for two America's Cup match races.

Entries are open from November 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023 with the organisers looking to confirm teams by May 1, 2024, and America's Cup management has noted the bar will be set high for those teams wishing to be involved to receive an invitation to compete.