The Swiss are back in the Cup, after Ernesto Bertarelli originally backed away from another attempt, and shut down the team.
But Bertarelli continued to follow the Cup negotiations and back in November 2025 he approached New Zealander David Endean, who has six Cup campaigns under his belt (including with Artemis and Ineos UK), and said ‘Look, things have changed. The Cup’s Partnership is looking positive and I’m happy and excited to get going again’ . . . Endean started with the nascent Tudor Alinghi Team in December.
In a recent interview with Sailorz, David Endean outlined the way forward and the pressures of the sharp U-turn . . . ‘Bertarelli’s late decision means that there’s always going to be an element that we feel a bit like the underdog, but everyone wants to feel like the underdog, everyone wants to unload that pressure.’
After AC37 Bertarelli shut the team down, everyone was let go and released from their contracts. But the next America’s Cup requires teams to race the old AC75 boats (AC36/37), the old masts, and you can use old sails. So it’s not a blank sheet of paper from that element. They get to start with where the team left off last time.
The team will look smaller purely because of the new cost caps. And they will definitely be bringing people back from the last project/campaign to make sure they don’t lose all the value that the team created last time. But it’ll be different, it’ll look different from the outside for sure, with different team members.
The priorities are to start to build the team but without rushing, being careful about making smart decisions and building the core group of people that they can move forward with. Recruiting is taking some time because people moved away and got on with their lives.
They’re taking a review of the whole team, not just the sailing team and have spoken to Arnaud Psarofaghis, who was the driver during the last Cup, and to several of the team members from last time. Nicolas Rolaz has joined the new team. They are also making the most of the opportunity to see what international sailors they could bring in.
The AC37 boat suffered some pretty severe damage during a campaign training session. It has been repaired much like it was when it was first built, but they now need to test the boat to take stock of where everything is structurally for the new layout requirements. They also need to go back and look at the mast program and also the appendages, they plan to have new appendages on the boat for racing next year.
They are taking a review of the whole team, not just the sailing team, and have spoken to Arnaud (Psarofaghis), who was the driver during the last Cup, they have also spoken to several of the team members from last time. And Nicolas Rolaz has joined the new team. They are also making the most of the opportunity to see what international sailors they could bring in.
And their prospects, is Alinghi’s goal is to win in one year?
David Endean . . . ‘I think it’ll be a challenge. From where we are now, I don’t think we’re going to be able to be as competitive as we’d like to be on the racecourse in one year’s time or in 14 months’ time. We’ll be focusing this time on making sure our core group is up and running, that we have good performance tools, that we make smart decisions that will look forward to AC39 and beyond.’
‘But I think, Luna Rossa and the Kiwis are very strong, the French and the British too. The French this time, they’ve got more preparation, they’ve already got that platform, the Barcelona campaign under their belt, so they’ll be very strong on the water as well. So I think it’s going to be fierce racing next year and very exciting.’
The five founder AC38 teams are Emirates Team New Zealand (NZL), Athena Racing (GBR), Luna Rossa (ITA), Tudor Team Alinghi (SUI) and K-Challenge (FRA).
Alinghi was the Winner of the 31st (2003) and 32nd (2007) America’s Cup.
