Francesco Bruni joins Tudor Team Alinghi as helmsman and skipper

Francesco Bruni is getting back in the AC75 – just not Luna Rossa’s. The Sicilian has signed for Tudor Team Alinghi as helmsman and skipper for the 38th America’s Cup in Naples, giving the Swiss one of the most experienced AC75 helms in the game, and an intriguing selection question to go with it.

Bruni steered Luna Rossa alongside Jimmy Spithill in Barcelona in 2024 before stepping back into a coaching role with the Italian team. It seems the itch to race never went away.

“I’m truly excited to join Tudor Team Alinghi, one of the iconic names of the America’s Cup,” says Bruni. “I’m eager to return to the helm and contribute to the team’s performance, and I’d like to thank Luna Rossa for allowing me to make this move. Many of my new teammates are people I know well and greatly respect, and I’m keen to start working with them.”

Team owner Ernesto Bertarelli was quick to credit the Italians for letting him go. “I’m grateful to Luna Rossa for agreeing to Francesco’s transfer,” he says. “He brings exceptional talent at the helm, along with an energy and enthusiasm that will lift everyone around him. I’m delighted to welcome him in the team.”

Bruni has done a bit of everything. The Italian has seven world titles across a range of classes and has been to three Olympic Games in three different boats – the Laser in Atlanta, the 49er in Sydney and the Star in Athens. At 44, he finished runner-up at the 2018 Moth Worlds, behind one Paul Goodison.

Naples will be his seventh America’s Cup campaign. Five were with Luna Rossa and one with Artemis Racing in Bermuda, and in 2021 he shared the helm as the Italians took on Emirates Team New Zealand in the Match in Auckland. The one thing missing is the Auld Mug itself.

Bruni will relocate to Naples, where the team starts sailing BoatOne on the Gulf of Naples in December.

Paul Goodison has been Alinghi’s skipper and starboard helm since the squad was unveiled in Barcelona in April, with Kiwi Phil Robertson on the port wheel. Around them sit trimmers Pietro Sibello – Alinghi’s head coach last time round, tactician and mainsail trimmer on Luna Rossa's AC75 alongside Bruni before that – and Nicolas Rolaz, the sole survivor from the AC37 race crew, along with Nathalie Brugger and Bryan Mettraux. Laurane Mettraux and youth-pathway graduate Jann Schüpbach joined in August. Jason Waterhouse was also part of the initial lineup, but has since left to join Team Australia.

With only two wheels on the AC75, our money is on Robertson being the one to make way. A two-time World Match Racing Tour champion and established SailGP driver, he’s a formidable racer, but his AC75 mileage is thin. Last cycle he was on Alinghi’s coaching staff, steering the AC40 sparring partner against BoatOne in pre-start drills, and it’s understood he only got time on BoatOne’s wheel after the Swiss had been knocked out of the Louis Vuitton Cup.

Goodison, by contrast, co-helmed American Magic’s AC75 in Barcelona and trimmed the mainsheet for the Americans in Auckland. Bruni has helmed AC75s through two full Cup cycles.

Then there’s the matter of the skipper’s title, which Goodison has held since April and which the announcement now gives to Bruni. How Alinghi divides the leadership is a question for another day. For now, the Swiss have added a heavyweight – and someone is going to feel the squeeze.