The boat that broke Italian hearts in Auckland Harbour in 2021 will fly an Australian flag in Naples in 2027.
Team Australia, the new Royal Prince Edward Yacht Club challenger for the 38th America's Cup, has confirmed it will base its campaign around a refurbished Te Rehutai, the AC75 that Peter Burling and Nathan Outteridge steered to a 7-3 series win over Luna Rossa to clinch Emirates Team New Zealand's defence.
The acquisition is the practical centrepiece of a wider design partnership with Emirates Team New Zealand. The defender retains its own development programme but provides hardware, upgrade pathways and engineering know-how to Australia in a model the two camps have framed as mutually beneficial.
Glenn Ashby, the three-time Cup winner who runs Team Australia's Performance and Design portfolio, has spent more time than most on the inside of New Zealand winning campaigns and is the natural conduit between the two operations.
"For more than half my sailing career I have had a dream to see an Australian team return to the pinnacle event," Ashby said at the launch.
He insisted the partnership did not blunt the competitive edge of either team. "One of the strengths of our country is that we're happy to lean in, swing hard and have a go!" he said.
CEO Grant Simmer, on his thirteenth Cup campaign, framed the boat purchase as the discipline that kept the project realistic given a barely 24-month build window.
"The nice thing about tight on time and a pretty tight on budget – tight but adequate – is that you don't waste time on science projects!" Simmer said.
The next AC75 protocol still allows for one new build per challenger, and Team Australia is expected to commission a fresh boat closer to the match. Te Rehutai's role is to give the squad an immediately competitive foiling platform for two-boat testing against Emirates Team New Zealand in Auckland through 2026, accelerating the learning curve for a crew that has never raced this generation of monohull as a team.
Tom Slingsby, the team's Head of Sailing and co-helmsman, has experience in foiling catamarans, Moths and SailGP F50s but has not raced an AC75. The Te Rehutai pathway gives him hands-on hours where rivals such as Italian challenger Luna Rossa and the British INEOS-led entry already have years of muscle memory.
"The opportunity to represent Australia in the America's Cup with an Australian team is something that genuinely means a lot to me," Slingsby said.
America's Cup Partnership chairman Grant Dalton, who heads Emirates Team New Zealand, welcomed the arrangement.
"History tells us that antipodean sailing has a habit of turning out the very best," Dalton said.
ACP CEO Marzio Perrelli echoed him: "Having Australia back in the America's Cup is something to be celebrated."
The 38th Cup match runs from July 10 to 18, 2027 in the Bay of Naples. For Australia, the route there will be largely traced in a hull that flew under a silver fern five years earlier.
