Culture
Women's and Youth America's Cup in Naples 2027: the other regattas
Smaller boats, bigger Italian memories: the two regattas that give you Naples with the foils flying and without the crowds a Match week may bring.
Photo: Geoff McKay from Palmerston North, New Zealand, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
What they are — AC40s, four aboard, two windows
Most coverage of the America's Cup 2027 in Naples is about the AC75s. But the programme has two other regattas, both in the smaller AC40: the Youth America's Cup on 2–6 June 2027, announced by the America's Cup Partnership on 23 September 2026 and repeated in its 28 September release, and the Women's America's Cup on 5–9 July. If you want the Lungomare with the boats flying but without the crowds a Match week may bring, these are your weeks.
An AC40 is a 12-metre one-design foiling monohull with four aboard, two helms and two trimmers, no grinders. Under the Protocol all seven Cup teams must enter both events and lend at least one AC40, pooled by the organisers with hulls and jibs stripped of team branding for event livery, with every crew made up entirely of nationals of the team's country.
Much is still open: as of October 2026 no Notice of Race, final entry list, format, pools, course or race times are published. Youth crews are expected to be 25-and-under, per the draft rules and the Under 25 remark by ACP chief executive Marzio Perrelli on 23 September 2026, to be confirmed in the Notice of Race. Access follows the rest of the 22 May–19 July programme: free in 2026, expected to stay free, 2027 rules not yet published — check americascup.com.
Barcelona 2024 — thirty-six seconds, then eight
Italian readers remember this part. In Barcelona the Youth America's Cup ran 17–26 September 2024, twelve teams in two pools of six, sailors under 25 per contemporary reports. The final on 26 September was a single match: Luna Rossa, with Marco Gradoni and Gianluigi Ugolini on the helms, beat American Magic by 36 seconds after an American 75-metre start-box penalty.
The first Women's America's Cup followed on 5–13 October 2024, broadly the same structure, no age limit. The final series ended with Athena Pathway and Luna Rossa tied on 27 points, and the match final on Saturday 12 October went to the Italians by 8 seconds: Giulia Conti skippering from the starboard wheel, with Margherita Porro and Maria Giubilei aboard, against Hannah Mills' British crew.
Two trophies in sixteen days, in a campaign whose Louis Vuitton Cup final was lost 7–4. Gradoni and Ugolini are now on the senior boat; Giubilei trimmed the senior AC40 in Naples in September 2026. Those two afternoons are why these weeks mean more here than a calendar gap.
The 2027 line-up — three listed, four to confirm
As of October 2026 the official teams page lists three Women and Youth entries: Emirates Team New Zealand Women & Youth, Cobham-Ultra GB2 and Luna Rossa 2. GB2 is the former Athena Pathway team, rebranded on 4 August 2026 (the Athena Pathway development programme continues), with Hannah Mills, twice Olympic 470 champion, as helm and Team Principal. Tudor Team Alinghi, La Roche-Posay Racing Team, ARC Team USA and Team Australia are not yet listed and have announced no squads: not confirmed.
Form guide: the Women and Youth AC40s raced in the senior fleet, same course, at both 2026 preliminaries. In Cagliari Luna Rossa's crew was third overall and the best of them; in Naples the New Zealand crew of Jake Pye, Erica Dawson, Serena Woodall and Josh Armit took the Women and Youth trophy on countback over Luna Rossa 2, both on 44 points, with GB2 ninth. None of it counts for 2027.
Why these weeks — the June break and the Match eve
The Youth week is quiet by design. According to the planned calendar published in 2026, which includes reserve days and may change, there is no AC75 racing between 2 and 8 June: the organisers label 1–8 June a break between the second and third round robins. Wednesday 2 June 2027 is also the Festa della Repubblica, the only national holiday in the window; Campania schools finish on Tuesday 8 June, so local families are mostly still in term time.
The Women's AC, 5–9 July, is the opposite kind of gap: the days between the Louis Vuitton Cup Final, to be concluded by 4 July, and the Match from 10 July. You get the city at full Cup pitch, then stay for the Match or leave. July, honestly: Naples was on red heat alert on 29 June–1 July 2026 and again on 19–22 July 2026; heat is a realistic risk, not a prediction, and the Lungomare has no shade at 14:00.
Our reading, as Neapolitans at Vesuview: the Final and Match weeks are expected to be the most requested (our which-week guide explains why), and we expect early June to be the easier of the two windows to book. Nobody has 2027 booking data; call it local instinct.
The Italian angle — a Naples sailor, where to watch
The one Neapolitan name on any youth squad is Federico Figlia di Granara, 23, from the Circolo del Remo e della Vela Italia, Luna Rossa's club. He joined Luna Rossa's youth team on 17 July 2026 and days later won a junior Nacra 17 world title, as reported by Il Mattino. He did not race in Naples in September and his 2027 selection has not been announced. Giulia Conti, the 2024 skipper, has no 2026 or 2027 role listed.
The Italian Sailing Federation showed up too in September 2026: four days of public sailing sessions from the Rotonda Diaz village put about 600 people on the water in Optimists and RS Fevas, with a Foil Academy and knot-and-foil workshops alongside, and within a week it had counted 1,294 new members in Campania, nine in ten of them children aged 6 to 14. Whether any of that returns for the June 2027 week is not yet announced.
Where to watch: the Lungomare Caracciolo and Posillipo, as the racing is expected on the same Gulf of Naples course as in September 2026, pools and race days to be confirmed in the Notice of Race; or the sofa, as RAI's free-to-air deal explicitly covers the 2027 Youth and Women's America's Cups, though channels and times are unpublished and 14:00 was the 2026 start. If anything moves, americascup.com and the Comune di Napoli will say so first.
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