This RI resident and URI grad will be coaching the U.S. team in the 37th America’s Cup

When the U.S. team in the America’s Cup preliminary regatta takes to the waters off Barcelona on Thursday, it will be a Newport resident and University of Rhode Island graduate coaching the crew.

Tom Burnham grew up sailing in Orange, Connecticut. In his senior year of high school, already competing at the international level, Burnham raced in the 420s championship in Yugoslavia, where his teammates included some URI sailors who sang the university’s praises.

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“I’ve sailed all my life. I was never a standout superstar but I was always involved in sailing and loved sailing,” Burnham said from Barcelona, Spain, as American Magic prepares for the 37th America’s Cup, which starts Thursday with the preliminary regatta. “It was one of the main reasons I went to URI, frankly. And the sailing team was really good at the time.”

In his four years at Kingston, the sailing team won several national championships and reached the World Collegiate Keelboat Championships (also called the Student Yachting World Cup) all four years. In 1990, the Rams became the only U.S. team to win the World Cup. It’s a distinction they still hold 34 years later.

In 1997, Burnham was living in Newport, doing some coaching and taking care of people’s boats, when he got an invitation to go out for a day with America’s Cup challenger Young America, which was training in nearby Quonset Point. That turned into a job that started a 10-year run of competing in the America’s Cup, including two campaigns with the Italian team, Luna Rossa. In 2017, he returned to the America’s Cup as head coach of Sweden’s Artemis Racing.

He was hired about two years ago to coach the New York Yacht Club American Magic, with a goal to win the 37th America’s Cup, returning the Cup to the yacht club that held it for 132 years. The mission starts Thursday, when American Magic gets its first close-up look at the four challengers — Britain, Italy, Switzerland, and France – and defending champion Emirates Team New Zealand in preliminary regatta. The racing starts for real Aug. 29 with the start of the Louis Vuitton Cup round-robin regatta. The regatta’s winner will face New Zealand for the America’s Cup, starting Oct. 12.

In those two years readying for the Cup, American Magic has put together its eight-man crew and substitutes and built a brand new AC75, the 75-foot-long monohull racing yacht that the Cup adopted in 2021. The yacht – Patriot – was the work of the club’s more than 40 engineers, about a third of the club’s total workforce. Patriot was built in Portsmouth at the yacht club’s manufacturing facility and flown to Barcelona on a cargo plane.

“The whole technology, construction, and design side is really a big part of the program with America’s Cup teams,” he says. “So that’s really exciting.”

Asked about his role as head coach, his first thoughts go to creating an inclusive team atmosphere.

“My real goal, my focus as a coach, is to create the environment for learning … where people feel comfortable asking questions and allowing themselves to be open to input, feedback and learning together,” he says.

As the crew practices off the Port of Barcelona, Burnham coaches from a chase boat, following behind Patriot and communicating directly with its crew. When racing begins, he will be in the chase boat, but stationed to the side of the race course and not allowed communication with Patriot.

“That’s part of the reason why fostering this atmosphere and getting guys to work together and problem-solve is so important,” he says. “They have to be self-reliant and deal with things as they come up while they’re racing.”

Asked to handicap the Cup, Burnham starts with his standard line: It will be close and come down to execution on race day.

But he adds: “I certainly like our sailing team … and I think the boats are going to be relatively similar. There are going to be some boats that have better days than others in terms of wind conditions. There might be some teams that are great in heavy air but not so good in light air. These are all things we’re going to find out in the next couple of weeks.

“I think that we’re doing well and we’re in a good place, but I’m certainly not overconfident about it either.”