The return of Switzerland’s two-time winning syndicate, Alinghi, to the America’s Cup has significantly upped the ante for the 37th edition of yacht racing’s oldest and most revered international competition scheduled to take place in Barcelona in the winter of 2024.
The Swiss outfit led by billionaire businessman and sailing fanatic Ernesto Bertarelli famously won the 31st edition in 2003 in Auckland against Team New Zealand. It went on to defend it successfully against the Kiwis in Valencia in 2007 before losing against the American BMW Oracle Racing in the notorious monster multihull Deed of Gift match in Valencia in 2010.
That loss saw Bertarelli step away from the America’s Cup for the next three editions—San Francisco, Bermuda and Auckland—but it was well-known in his circles that he had not lost interest and was keeping a close eye on how the Cup was evolving. Now, with the Cup entering its second go-around in the spectacularly hightech AC75 class, he has decided the time is right for the popular syndicate to make a return as Alinghi Red Bull Racing.
From the outside at least, this latest Swiss America’s Cup challenge appears to differ significantly from the previous iterations of the team. Aside from a highprofile technology partnership with Red Bull Advanced Technology a sister company to the current Formula 1 motorsport champions, Red Bull Racing) the syndicate is fielding an unashamedly Swiss-centric sailing team lineup. That’s a very different scenario to previous campaigns, when the sailing teams were made up largely of foreign sailors—including a significant contingent from New Zealand.
Prominent among those Kiwi sailors in the Alinghi afterguard back then was tactician and subsequently skipper Brad Butterworth, who also now plays an integral part in the burgeoning Alinghi Red Bull Racing campaign.
This story is from the Fall 2022 edition of Sailing World.
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This story is from the Fall 2022 edition of Sailing World.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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