America's Cup: Pietro Sibello ahead of the preliminary regatta

The very first team to start training in Barcelona, Alinghi Red Bull Racing have racked up the hours relentlessly training and developing their skills in order to bridge the gap to the established teams returning from the America’s Cup in Auckland 2021. It has been a privilege to watch this young Swiss team develop throughout the time they were covered by the Joint Reconnaissance programme, and they’ve called on some impressive resources to keep their training sharp and consistent whilst constantly going to the next level.

As previous two-time winners of the America’s Cup in 2003 and 2007, Alinghi Red Bull Racing have a pedigree and heritage to live up to and they’ve taken so many right steps in this campaign that when the racing comes, they will be match-fit and ready for whatever is thrown at them. Huge credit goes to the coaching staff both on and off the water with an impressive programme put in place to make these Swiss athletes the very best they can be.

Pietro Sibello, a two time Olympian in the 49er class with his brother Gianfranco and a former European 49er Champion, now in his third America’s Cup, has been key to pushing the Swiss sailors in the right direction. His mantra of ‘never giving up,’ forged after a controversial Olympic decision that robbed him and his brother of a medal in 2008 at Beijing, is something that he has imparted to the Alinghi Red Bull Racing team and ahead of the final Preliminary Regatta, we caught up with Pietro to gauge their approach to this final test before the Louis Vuitton Cup starts at the end of August.

Asked how the Swiss are eyeing their competition, Pietro is eager to see performance, saying: “At this stage we are working on different approaches to racing, and we try to be open-minded. Boat performance will be much closer than what we saw during last Cup, and definitely will be crucial to know strength and weakness of your opponents. The Preliminary Regatta will be the perfect opportunity to gather this.

For certain the team’s radical-looking ‘BoatOne’ that appears to have high manoevrability especially in the starting-box will be something that every keen America’s Cup watcher will be looking at with interest. Pietro will be looking at relative performance keenly, saying: “The Preliminary Regatta will be the only opportunity for the teams to check their performance in an official racing environment. As it is so close to the start of the Louis Vuitton Cup, you need to be well prepared on racing basics, so that you can then get where you stand compared to the others in terms of boat speed, manoeuvres or starts. There will be plenty of learnings to take that week.”

It's a long-haul series with the Preliminary Regatta merely the opening salvo in what promises to be a thrilling summer of sailing in Barcelona. It’s a sailing area that Alinghi Red Bull Racing have made home for the past two years and the team are confident that they know the waters and have the boat to deliver as Pietro confirms: “We know that Barcelona can provide different conditions at any time, especially the sea state. We have been the first team sailing here at the venue, we had the chance to get a real feel of it before to design our racing boat. Of course, we had to target a range of conditions where we wanted our performance to peak, but being able to mode the boat for any day may make you win in a long competition like the America’s Cup.”

The design race has been an area where the Swiss have really concentrated and focussed to eke out marginal gains wherever they can. Pietro sees very much the bigger picture and the whole process in terms of making improvements with technique perhaps being a key piece to the overall puzzle as he says: “The AC75’s are really complex machines, the performance is driven mainly by appendages, sails, systems and technique. As the rules stand, it’s unlikely you can change a part overnight and be much faster the day after. It’s more about a learning process that has started from day one and will end only on the last racing day. Here is where the coach can make the difference, making sure that the team keeps looking for improvements, developing ideas or taking learnings from the other teams.”

In recent training days, ‘BoatOne’ has hugely impressed in the pre-start practice with Arnaud Psarofaghis and Maxime Bachelin, the helms, co-ordinating well with their trim and flight controllers. The manoeuvrability of ‘BoatOne’ has also impressed and it’s here where the team might just cause some major upsets. Pietro confirms their focus on this crucial area, saying: “The pre-start is a crucial part of the race, you can win or lose races at the start gun. As much as you can practice, only when you enter the line against another AC75 you will get the right feeling for the manoeuvrability, the acceleration of your opponent. Yes, when you cross the starting line, you have a perfect tight line up to the boundary where you can understand a lot.”

The coaching staff across all the teams identified very early on that speed out of the tacks and gybes is vital to success and it’s here where the hard yards are won by the coaches as Pietro confirms: “With this race format and with the boats being close in performance, we will spend a long part of the racing time manoeuvring and accelerating. We are talking about many metres to gain around the racecourse, it’s normal that all the teams had to focus a lot on that.”

As the time for racing approaches and the endless hours of practice come to fruition, how confident are the Swiss going into the final Preliminary Regatta? Pietro is quietly confident and that’s mirrored throughout the team: “We feel we have a solid platform, and we are confident that we can get into the Preliminary Regatta with the ability to get all the learnings to be ready for the Louis Vuitton Cup.”

Racing starts in the final Preliminary Regatta on Thursday 22nd August, running through to the one-race Final on Sunday 25th August – just four days before the Louis Vuitton Cup begins. For Alinghi Red Bull Racing it’s their moment to shine and for the Swiss fans, once again, it’s an exciting time to be waving the white cross with pride.