Founded by Swiss businessman Ernesto Bertarelli, Alinghi featured Russell Coutts and Brad Butterworth who had both joined from Team New Zealand.

The syndicate was only established in 2001 and Paolo Cian served as helmsman and the crew included Flavio Favini,[5] Shannon Falcone,[6] Giuseppe Brizzi,[7] Davide Scarpa,[8] and Pierluigi De Felice.

[11] The crew included Kevin Shoebridge as a trimmer, Mark Mendelblatt as backup helmsman, Kevin Hall, Rick Dodson,[12] David Endean, Grant Spanhake, Peter Waymouth, Matt Mason,[6] Joey Newton,[6] James Spithill, Jeremy Scantlebury, Alan Smith,[13] Andy Fethers, Andrew Taylor, Scott Crawford,[14] and Olympians Craig Monk, Don Cowie, Ben Ainslie, Kelvin Harrap, Charles and Jonathan McKee.

The team was skippered by Peter Holmberg and also featured Paul Cayard, Matt Welling, Bob Wylie, [19] John Cutler, Phil Jameson, Brad Webb, Brian MacInnes,[6] Cameron Dunn,[20] and Chris Dickson.

They were again skippered by Francesco de Angelis and Rod Davis, Pietro D'Alì, Thomas Burnham, Hartwell Jordan, Piero Romeo,[22] Gavin Brady,[23] Francesco Bruni, Andrew Hemmings, Steven Erickson, Matteo Plazzi,[24] Gilberto Nobili,[6] Massimo Gherarducci, Alberto Barovier,[25] and Torben Grael were in the crew.