Jimmy Spithill is determined to contest another America's Cup after this year's loss but doesn't know yet whether it will be as part of a long-awaited Australian campaign.
Spithill plans to be back competing on Australian waters this summer, potentially for a third crack in four years at line honours in the Sydney to Hobart.
Photo: RNZ / Todd Niall
He was part of the Comanche supermaxi crew which took line honours in 2015 and finished second in 2014.
Spithill skippered American businessman Larry Ellison's Oracle to America's Cup wins in 2010 and 2013 but lost to Team New Zealand in Bermuda this year.
There have been reports that Ellison may decide to not contest the next Cup while there is also speculation of a first Australian America's Cup entrant since 2000.
Spithill is now awaiting the release in the next few weeks of Team New Zealand's protocols for the 2021 event.
"You really are just in a holding pattern, just waiting to see what the event is," Spithill told AAP.
"It's so difficult until you know where the goalposts are to make any sort of decisions and, so hopefully, that will all become apparent over the next few weeks or month or so.
"Then I'll make a decision, but as an athlete, it's sort of like a rugby player losing the grand final.
"You don't want to go out that way, you want to come back, you want to win again, your naturally competitive."
He is promoting his autobiography Chasing the Cup in which he details his on and off water highs and lows.
He admitted it's been tough in the aftermath of Cup.
"You don't have that super competitive aspect, you can't get out on that boat and get the adrenaline going," he said.
Although there was no local boat in the last America's Cup, Spithill stressed there was still a big Australian presence in Bermuda.
Spithill and the skippers of the two boats that made the challengers' final, Glenn Ashby (Team New Zealand ) and Nathan Outteridge (Sweden's Artemis Racing) are Australian, with a number of other Aussies scattered across different crews.
-aap