2021 Prada Cup
The 2021 Prada Challenger's Trophy is a sailing competition held to determine the challenger in the 2021 America's Cup who would challenge Emirates Team New Zealand. The races have been held from January 15 to February 21, 2021 in Auckland, New Zealand and were preceded by the 2019–20 America's Cup World Series. Veteran sailor Iain Murray served again as race director. The team Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli beat Ineos Team UK 7-1 in the final moving onto the 2021 America's Cup. Teams. Three teams that competed for the title of challenger against  defender Team New Zealand in the 2021 America's Cup. Rules. Boats. The Cup is sailed in AC75s, 75 foot foiling monohulls. The boats are expected to have requirements around the boats being "constructed in country". Teams are allowed to build two boats each. Nationality. Twenty percent of sailors in each team must have passports from that country. The rest must meet a residency requirement: they must reside in that team's country for 380 days from 1 September 2018 to 1 September 2020. Competition format. The Prada Cup uses a quadruple Round-robin tournament to determine a seeding. The  second and third seeds after all twelve races then compete in a seven-race series in order to advance to a 13-race final series against the first seed from the round robin. The winner of this final series will become the challenger for the 2021 America's Cup against defender Team New Zealand. Round Robin. The triple round-robin series was held on the 15th till the 23rd of January. The UK was undefeated and therefore qualified directly for the final. America lost twice to each of the other competitors, and then in their fourth race the American team  capsized and caused significant damage to the boat — forcing their withdrawal from the remaining races in the round-robin while they undertook repairs. Italy, having lost all their races against UK but won all the races against the USA, came second. This forced the USA and Italy to the semif-final knockout series, and the right to challenge the UK again in the final. Round Robin 1 (January 15–16). Notes: Round Robin 2 (January 16–17). Notes: Round Robin 3 (January 22–23). Notes: Round Robin 4 (January 23–24). Notes Semi-final. The semi-finals were held from 29 January to 2  February 2021. The second and third-placed team from the round-robin competed in a best-of-seven series to determine who would sail in the final against the UK. As the higher seed, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli chose to have Starboard gate position as their preferred starting mark. They would win the series 4-0, making the USA the first challenger team to be knocked out of the competition. Notes Finals. The Prada Cup Final determined the Challenger that will face the Defender Emirates Team New Zealand in the 2021 America's Cup, was raced from 13 to 21  February 2021 in a best-of-13 series. As the higher seed, Ineos Team UK chose to have Starboard gate position as their preferred starting mark. Coming into the finals, both teams were undefeated in the immedately proceeding series (the semi-finals for Italy, and the round-robins for the UK). Italy would eventually continue this streak by winning the first 5 of the finals races, and eventually the whole series 7-1. Notes