Tudor Team Alinghi name their sailors for AC38

Tudor Team Alinghi have confirmed the core of their sailing squad for the Louis Vuitton 38th America's Cup in Naples, and the list makes for interesting reading.

Leading the group is Paul Goodison – Olympic gold medallist, three-time Moth world champion, and most recently co-helm at American Magic alongside Tom Slingsby in Barcelona 2024, a campaign that ended prematurely when an off-water injury ruled him out of the semi-finals. He arrives at Alinghi with two Cup campaigns' worth of knowledge from the American Magic programme along with one with Artemis, and by all accounts a point to prove.

“I've been blown away a little bit by how well the boats have been sailed and how good the racing has been,” Goodison told The Foil, the team now having completed almost 10 days of training in Barcelona. “It's not only how we're performing on the water – it's how well we get on as a group ashore, how we're learning, how we're listening to each other.”

Alongside him is Phil Robertson, the New Zealand match racing specialist and current Red Bull Italy SailGP driver who served as a tune-up helmsman and coach within the Alinghi camp during AC37. It'll be his first time actually racing in the America's Cup.

"It's about planning for now, for next month, for the future. There's a lot going on in the background. It's definitely a big machine. It's a long-term view that the team is taking," says Robertson.

Jason Waterhouse – Rio 2016 Nacra 17 silver medallist and widely regarded as one of the best flight controllers currently operating on an F50 – was also embedded in the Barcelona campaign but couldn't race under the nationality rules at the time. That changes for Naples.

"The America's Cup gets your design brain going a lot. You might approach problems a little differently in SailGP that you maybe hadn't thought of, and vice versa. Because you're not racing very often in the America's Cup, it's nice to do SailGP to keep your racing skills and that performance under pressure ignited," he explains.

Nicolas Rolaz is the sole holdover from the AC37 race crew, returning as trimmer and carrying the Swiss flag into his second campaign. The 2014 Optimist World Champion and former headsail trimmer in Barcelona had been the one publicly confirmed name since Alinghi entered the AC38 partnership in December.

"I'm the only one that survived this gap year, but I would say I’m not feeling pressure. Mostly, I know that I need to bring the guys up to the BoatOne level," Rolaz says. “We all know each other already and still need to learn from each other even more.”

Pietro Sibello steps off the coaching pontoon and onto the boat as trimmer, having spent AC37 as Alinghi's head coach after trimming the mainsail for Luna Rossa in Auckland. Now in his third Cup campaign in a new capacity entirely — and officially eligible to race as a national sailor under the AC38 rules, after years embedded with the Swiss programme.

"Looking at the other teams sailing the 75 already, or Luna Rossa never stopping, we know we are starting a little bit on the back foot. I think it's important at this stage not to rush things," he added.

Completing the six is Nathalie Brugger, the Swiss three-time Olympian who skippered Alinghi's Women's team through the inaugural Puig Women's America's Cup in Barcelona. The AC38 rules mandate a woman on the AC75, and Brugger arrives with AC40 race experience already banked.

"I've never sat on the boat, even in the boat shed. I have no idea what it looks like. I think the boys don't realise that I have never seen their boats before," Brugger tells The Foil, who this week has been helming the AC40 alongside Goodison. “It's going to be a massive learning curve for me, and I'm happy to take this challenge.”

Overseeing it all is David Endean, the Kiwi who spent the last Cup cycle as COO at INEOS Britannia and now finds himself heading up the Swiss challenge. The team has grown from seven people in December to around 50 today. While Endean admits the team is playing catch up, he's also taking the long-term view.

“Everyone probably feels like they're late [this cycle], but for us, I think the key was to make sure we didn't rush and make mistakes as we rebuild the group,” he says. “We just have to be super realistic about what we can achieve in these next 16 or 17 months. A lot of that is about getting the right people together and engineering a core group together that we can build on.”

The crew announced today is for Sardinia specifically, with the full AC75 roster still to be finalised as the team continues to evaluate crew configurations ahead of Naples. Following the current training block in Barcelona, the team will regroup on the water in mid-May in Sardinia before the first Preliminary Regatta in Cagliari, scheduled for 21-24 May.