Glenn Ashby to be inducted into the America’s Cup Hall of Fame
Australian sailing legend Glenn Ashby has been announced as one of four 2026 inductees into the Herreshoff Marine Museum/America’s Cup Hall of Fame, along with the Beken Dynasty, Peter Isler, and Lowell North.
“This year’s Class is a quintessential group of America’s Cup participants. It features a superb skipper with a deep understanding of the sport's technical side; a talented family of photographers whose work has documented over a hundred years of the Cup; an expert navigator who’s also great at sharing his knowledge; and a sailmaking genius and mentor to many. Together, they embody what makes the America’s Cup an endlessly fascinating pursuit,” said America’s Cup Hall of Fame Selection Committee Chair Steven Tsuchiya. “We look forward to celebrating their accomplishments in October.”
The America’s Cup Hall of Fame has inducted over one hundred individuals since its founding in 1992. Candidates eligible for consideration include sailing team members, designers, builders, syndicate leaders, supporters, chroniclers, and other individuals of merit. Each nominee is judged on the basis of outstanding ability, international recognition, character, performance, and contributions to the America’s Cup. The members of the Selection Committee are intimate with the history and traditions of America's Cup and are committed to maintaining the integrity of the Hall of Fame.
"This is an incredibly diverse group of inductees, and it highlights the ultimate combination of technology, skill, and beauty that make up the America’s Cup," said America’s Cup Hall of Fame President & Executive Director Bill Lynn. “Thanks to Glenn Ashby for teaching everyone how to sail multihulls, to Peter Isler for teaching us all what a stadimeter is, to Lowell North for countless innovations to the ‘aero packages’, and to the Beken family for recording it with an amazing eye for detail and timing.”
Glenn Ashby CREDIT Ricardo Pinto
Blue Robinson represents Australia on the America’s Cup Hall of Fame Selection Committee, and was delighted to be able to inform Glenn of his induction in the class of 2026.
“Glenn Ashby has been a significant contributor to the evolution of how the America’s Cup is both raced and perceived," said Robinson at the announcement.
"A foiling multihull specialist, Glenn was recruited by BMW Oracle Racing prior to the DOG match in 2010, to coach the sailors in a completely new dynamic to that team. Glenn’s influence in helping the teams evolve was a significant factor in that 2010 DOG win, plus Glenn was key to orchestrating the shift to skimming - then foiling, on the AC72 at ETNZ, where the ETNZ afterguard and management also came from a displacement monohull background and mindset.
"With colleagues like Dan Bernasconi, and outstanding talent around him, ETNZ has won and retained the Cup, but I believe the input of Ashby - shaping and influencing the broader and finer details contributing to this team’s success, made him an ideal candidate for selection to the America’s Cup Hall of Fame."
The inductees will be honored on October 16th, 2026 at the America’s Cup Hall of Fame Induction gala in the Model Room of the New York Yacht Club.
America’s Cup Hall of Fame Inductees, Class of 2026 - Glenn Ashby (b.1977)
Glenn Ashby played a key technical role and afterguard member in five America’s Cup campaigns across three teams, securing three victories.
A sailmaker by trade and ten-time world A-class catamaran champion, Ashby’s career spanned the most technologically diverse period of the America’s Cup, during which four different classes or types were used in five consecutive Cups. This era included the 120ft wingsailed open-class trimaran that sailed in the 2010 “Deed of Gift” match in Valencia, the 50ft wing-sailed near-one-design foiling catamaran in the 2017 series, and then the AC75 foiling monohull, which features a soft double-skinned mainsail used in the 2021 and 2024 cycles. In these campaigns, Ashby’s role as sailor, sail designer, and coach was to act as the interface between the sailing team and the design teams for the USA, New Zealand, and French America’s Cup teams.
Ashby grew up in Bendigo, Victoria, Australia, sailing dinghies and small catamarans on local lakes. As a teenager, he demonstrated a prodigious talent for multihulls and left traditional school at age 16 to pursue an apprenticeship as a sailmaker. This intensive, hands-on self-education in sail design and aerodynamics proved valuable in his later roles, helping him develop sophisticated rigid-wing sails and twin-skin mainsails for Emirates Team New Zealand's America's Cup programs.
He served as a multihull coach during the successful BMW Oracle Racing campaign in the 2010 America’s Cup in Valencia, Spain, earning his first America’s Cup victory. For the next Cup, he joined Emirates Team New Zealand as the team’s core multihull expert as it transitioned from monohulls to foiling catamarans. He was the wing trimmer aboard the team’s 72-foot catamaran AOTEAROA, which came very close to winning the 2013 match. After the Kiwis' bitter disappointment in San Francisco, Ashby was skipper and wing trimmer aboard the team’s 50-foot catamaran, winning the Cup, in Bermuda in 2017. He achieved his third Cup victory as mainsail trimmer aboard the AC75 TE REHUTAI for New Zealand’s successful defense in Auckland in 2021. In the 2024 America’s Cup, he was a coach/consultant to the new French America’s Cup team before moving across to the host-broadcast commentary team role for that event.
“We have been the ‘Lone Wolf’ from day one,” Ashby said, reflecting on the embattled 2017 America’s Cup campaign. “We have had to adopt that as our stance, as we were away from everyone. But we also had to be the Lone Wolf in our design philosophy and our projection and anticipation of where the bar would ultimately be, in this cycle.”
“We have definitely run our own course, and it has proven to be the correct one. Ultimately, we knew we were racing ourselves. We knew where the level was going to get to - and if we didn't reach that level, we wouldn't be competitive,” he added.
During the intense 2017 Challenger Series and Cup match, Ashby became globally recognised as the quiet, steady leader of Emirates Team New Zealand's “Lone Wolf” campaign.
Operating in isolation in Auckland before arriving in Bermuda, Ashby skippered a revolutionary cyclor-powered catamaran. A key element in that campaign was the development of the New Zealand test boat, which, with an extended rudder gantry, took the permitted 45-footer and gave it similar foiling geometry to the AC50 – enabling Emirates Team NZ to test and develop in full size for months longer than their competitors. Ashby joins the ranks of the Cup's most distinguished innovators.
Before his integration into the America's Cup, Ashby spent his early career establishing himself as one of the greatest multihull sailors in history. He has won a staggering 17 World Championships across three highly competitive classes: the A-Class Catamaran, the Tornado, and the Formula 18. In 2008, Ashby partnered with Darren Bundock to win a silver medal for Australia in the Tornado class at the Beijing Olympic Games.
An avid motorcyclist, Ashby broadened his pursuit of speed to land yachting. He led and piloted Emirates Team New Zealand’s land-speed project, and in 2022, he broke a new wind-powered land-speed world record, piloting the craft HORONUKU to 222.4 km/h across Lake Gairdner in South Australia.
After his 2024 stint with the French Orient Express Racing team, which built an AC75 based on Emirates Team New Zealand's design, Ashby moved into a role as a technical commentator for the host broadcast of the 2024 America’s Cup in Barcelona. There, he used his keen eye for technical and sailing nuances, combined with the relaxed commentary of a top coach, to educate an audience of millions.
Glenn Ashby's influence goes beyond his time on the water; he played a key role in shaping Emirates Team New Zealand's open, innovative culture. This transparent and forward-thinking approach to development is clear in the team's current operations. Ashby’s legacy of bridging cutting-edge technical design with practical sailing is embedded in the Kiwi team's practices today.
About the Herreshoff Marine Museum & the America's Cup Hall of Fame
The Herreshoff Marine Museum, located in Bristol, Rhode Island, USA, is a maritime museum dedicated to the history of the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company and the America’s Cup. The Herreshoff Manufacturing Company (1878-1945) was most notable for producing fast sailing yachts, including eight America’s Cup defenders, and steam-powered vessels. The museum, situated near Narragansett Bay on the grounds where the manufacturing company once stood, has a collection of over sixty boats including Nathanael Greene Herreshoff’s CLARA, built in 1887, Harold Vanderbilt’s TRIVIA, and the 1992 ACC yacht DEFIANT.
Website: www.herreshoff.org
The America's Cup Hall of Fame was founded in 1992 to preserve the legacy and history of the America’s Cup competition, celebrating its heroes and inspiring future generations of Cup enthusiasts and participants by connecting the past with the present – and the future. It does this in part by maintaining a comprehensive collection of AC artifacts and ephemera, as well as a collection of photography and video, and by celebrating everything that makes the America’s Cup one of the world’s most compelling sporting events.
Website: www.achof.com
