Alinghi capsize and penalties leave Swiss team seventh after tough day two in Sardinia

Saturday on the Gulf of Angels proved an unforgiving test for Tudor Team Alinghi, whose second day at the Louis Vuitton 38th America's Cup Preliminary Regatta in Sardinia unravelled across three fleet races of shifting, unpredictable breeze.

The Swiss challenger had carried genuine momentum into Saturday's racing after a promising opening day. What followed was a sequence of misfortune and errors that built on one another, with penalties, a splashdown, and ultimately a capsize combining to undo any early progress.

The lowest point came in Race 5. An aggressive start drew a boat-on-boat penalty, and the crew were already working their way back through the fleet when the boat capsized during a downwind gybe. All four sailors were confirmed safe without delay, and both the shore crew and support teams responded immediately, restoring the boat to race-ready condition before the final race of the day.

“It’s been a tough day. We made some big changes overnight, went back out there today and struggled a lot. The boat wasn’t working quite as it should, so we spent all day trying to problem-solve and make it better. We obviously didn’t sail at our best either, so it’s been a tricky day. “But we got a good look at how we operate under pressure as a team. Everybody was trying to problem-solve as best they could, and that’s probably the biggest positive to take from it. We learned a lot about ourselves today, and now we look forward to tomorrow." — Paul Goodison, Skipper and Starboard Helm

“We knew before coming here that we didn't have many hours on the water as a team, and so we are still proud of how the team is working; everybody is working really hard, especially the shore team; they have been trying to get the most from the boat over these three days." — Pietro Sibello, Port Trim

Race wins across the day were distributed among Team New Zealand, Athena Pathway, and Luna Rossa Women & Youth, a spread of results that kept the overall leaderboard tight ahead of the competition's final day.

For the Tudor Team Alinghi crew, the Saturday evening task was straightforward in intent if not execution: absorb the lessons, review the racing, and return to the water the following morning in the right frame of mind.

The Gulf of Angels delivered a blunt lesson in what separates the front of the AC40 fleet from those still finding their feet. Where Friday had offered flashes of what this Swiss crew can produce, Saturday layered light and unstable air, technical problems, and unforced errors in a way that exposed the team's current vulnerabilities. The boat-on-boat penalty and the Race 5 capsize were the most visible consequences of that combination.

The overall standings place Alinghi seventh among eight teams, but skipper Paul Goodison drew attention to something the results sheet does not capture. He noted that the crew had spent the entire afternoon managing a boat that "wasn't working quite as it should," problem-solving under pressure throughout. For a team that openly acknowledges the gap in dynamic water time between themselves and the front-runners, the pace with which the shore crew turned the boat around for that final race carries more weight as a measure of progress than any finishing position.

What Alinghi is not short of is commitment or technical resource. What takes longer to build is the deeply ingrained muscle memory that allows foiling manoeuvres to be executed cleanly when conditions turn difficult. That only comes with more time on the water.

Overall standings after six races