Sir Russell Coutts has confirmed he is unlikely to be involved in future America's Cup regattas, despite the 36th tournament likely to be raced in New Zealand.
Sir Russell has lifted the Auld Mug five times during his career - three as the helmsman and two more recently as CEO of Oracle - but has admitted he won't be competing for a sixth.
"I don't really have any ambitions to continue with the America's Cup at this point," Sir Russell told yachtingnz.org.nz.
"I have had quite a few years involved with it - loved it, fantastic event - but there are other things to do in life.
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"In some ways, you need fresh people to come in and they have obviously given it a quite a different treatment of it this time and I say good for them. I certainly hope it's a huge success in terms of the impact it could have on junior sailing in this country."
In an attempt to have a bigger impact on junior sailing, Sir Russell is helping out with a number of projects, which includes being commodore of the Manly Sailing Club on the Whangaparoa Peninsula, north of Auckland.
The Manly sailing club is one of the smallest in Auckland, and Sir Russell hopes to quadruple the number of junior members in the next two years.
Even though the focus is on growing junior sailing, former stars and Stripes skipper Dennis Conner believes Team New Zealand should extend an olive branch to Sir Russell, to strengthen their chance of winning in Auckland in 2021.
"If I was trying to win, [Sir Russell] would certainly be involved," Conner told RadioLIVE.
"Who is smarter about the America's Cup than Russell Coutts? No one. He won more events, he knows more about it, he knows how to win, so why wouldn't you want the best guy in your country involved?
"If he is not involved, they are giving a break to the foreigners. I'd make amends with Russell. If there are any hard feelings, just get over it."
Despite not wanting to compete, Sir Russell said he is excited to watch due to the decision to race in monohulls.
"I will be watching with interest," Sir Russell said. "It should be a great event here.
"Because I'm not involved, I don't really have any comment [to make about the decision to race monohulls]. I haven't sailed monohulls like that before. People made all sorts of presumptions and judgments about the catamarans in the America's Cup, but quite a few of those people have never sailed in a boat like that.
"All these presumptions about, 'oh, they're not tactical' or 'they can't do that', well, they were shown to be wrong. They can try to deny it now and say they're not as tactical as this boat over here, but of course they were tactical. The fact Pete Burling was able to win that many starts, do you think that was just a fluke? Of course it was tactical.
"There is a lot of very traditional thinking in this sport and it's a non-traditional world now. When I look at the people making those comments, they are generally older people who are, dare I say it, stuck in their old ways. I think you need to be careful about viewing life like that. At some point you need to look at it through a young person's eyes and try to imagine what they would have been like when they were 20, or even younger."
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