Slingsby’s numerous sailing achievements speak for themselves. After winning an Olympic gold medal in the Laser at London 2012, he played a key role in Oracle Team USA’s legendary comeback victory in the 34th America’s Cup in San Francisco, before masterminding three consecutive season championship wins in SailGP as skipper of the Australian team.
The common thread that runs through all those successful campaigns is the level of his influence over the way they were run.
His Olympic gold medal came with plenty of support from his coach Michael Blackburn, but out on the waters off Weymouth it was Slingsby alone in the boat who delivered the results.
The US America’s Cup team’s turnaround in fortune came almost immediately after a rejigging of the afterguard that saw Slingsby elevated to become one of the key decision-makers, on and off the water.
And the Australian team’s almost total domination of SailGP since its inception can almost completely be attributed to the quality and longevity of the sailing team that Slingsby hand-picked and then carefully honed into a close-to-invincible force.
Given that SailGP success, it comes as no surprise that when tasked with picking a team for the first Australian America’s Cup challenge in 26 years, Slingsby has called up all but one of his BONDS Flying Roos teammates. (Only wing trimmer Iain Jensen is missing from the list, having previously signed for Emirates Team New Zealand.)
SailGP flight controller and tactician Jason Waterhouse steps into a helming role on the port side of the Australian AC75 opposite Slingsby, after switching allegiances from the Swiss America’s Cup challenger Tudor Team Alinghi. Waterhouse won silver in the Nacra 17 (sailing with Lisa Darmanin) at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Team Australia’s two trimmers/flight controllers are Luke Parkinson and Tom Needham.
As well as winning the 2014-15 edition of the Volvo Ocean Race aboard Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, Parkinson was a cyclor with INEOS Britannia when they won the Louis Vuitton Cup during AC37, and is the flight controller with the Season 5-winning Emirates Great Britain SailGP Team.
In 2025, Tom Needham became the youngest-ever helmsman to win the JJ Giltinan 18ft Skiff World Championship. He sailed as part of the Team Australia entry in the 2024 Youth America’s Cup in Barcelona, and is a reserve sailor for the BONDS Flying Roos, as well as working within SailGP’s hydraulic and systems operations. Appropriately for a modern America’s Cup sailor, Needham attained a degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering, in which his specific focus was on the performance of supercavitating foils.
The BONDS Flying Roos’ Tash Bryant had previously been announced as a member of the Team Australia America’s Cup challenge. A past 49erFX under-19 world champion, Bryant was co-helm opposite Hannah Mills aboard the British Athena Pathway Women’s America’s Cup crew that made it to the final against Luna Rossa at AC37.
Also announced as sailing team members were BONDS Flying Roos grinders Sam Newton and Kinley Fowler – both of whom were part of Oracle Team USA’s America’s Cup victory. Although Fowler’s role has not been specified, Newton describes his responsibilities as: “working with the sailing team as part of the operations management, to keep the link between the sailing team, design team, and shore team, to work out the most efficient processes to maximise our time out on the water”.
The Australian team will not be competing at the upcoming second preliminary regatta in Italy in a couple of weeks’ time, but the sailing squad have been spending plenty of time in their simulator at the team’s new base in Sydney.
Meanwhile the Aussie AC75 – previously Te Rehutai, winner of the 2021 America’s Cup – continues to undergo modifications by its previous owners Emirates Team New Zealand under the supervision of technical director Glenn Ashby. The team aren’t planning to launch their boat until 2027, with the first sail expected to be at the 38th America’s Cup venue in Naples.