The development of technology in sailing had a great impact on the level of results in competitive sailing. The aim of this thesis is to present how the development of sailing technology in the America's Cup sailing competition influenced the development of sailing technology and sailing outside of that competition. Behind the mentioned regatta are almost always one of the world's largest corporations. Therefore, it is not surprising that the America's Cup became a laboratory for the development of sports sailing, from which new knowledge was regularly transferred to other sailing classes. From the 1980s to today, the evolution of construction technology, materials used and hull design has been nothing short of extreme. Faster and more powerful hulls appear, until the appearance of wings that allow ships to "fly" on water. The development of new materials has enabled foil technology to be applied in the development of Olympic-class ships. The improvement of technological solutions increased the safety of sailors and the media coverage of the competition, which directly led to greater popularity and coverage of sports sailing. In the two centuries since the competition has existed, there have probably been a lot of innovative ideas to improve the boats. However, society and technologies were not yet sufficiently developed and these ideas were put on hold. It was a matter of waiting patiently for the science and resources to come together in a quality project that could be applied to boats, both America's Cup ones and other sports yachts. Technology is advancing more and more every day, and it will be really interesting to follow how it will affect the further development of sailing and ships, already in the near future.