KEY POINTS:
VALENCIA - Alinghi's full contingent of former Team New Zealand sailors are expected to stay with the Swiss defenders for the next America's Cup.
Skipper and tactician Brad Butterworth has already said he wants to remain with the syndicate, which held on to the America's Cup by completing
a 5-2 win over Team NZ off Valencia on Wednesday.
He said today that his four long-term colleagues -- Dean Phipps, Warwick Fleury, Simon Daubney and Murray Jones -- wanted to do the same.
"We stick together, that's for sure," he said.
"We're mates and we've sailed together for years. We talk about what we're going to do ahead of time. We've always been keen to sail with one another and we enjoy each other's company.
"The fact that we've won again makes our friendship, our skills, better and we just want to do it again. We're having a great time."
Butterworth, who said he made his decision to stay with Alinghi before the just-completed regatta began, saw it as vital to keep Phipps, Fleury, Daubney and Jones in his crew.
"It's very important because that's been our career and that's been our strength," he said.
"Why break it up?"
The quintet have now won the America's Cup four successive times, the first two with Team NZ before they and skipper Russell Coutts switched to Alinghi in 2000.
Coutts wasn't part of Alinghi's defence effort against Team NZ over the past fortnight, having left the syndicate after they won the Auld Mug in Auckland in 2003.
There is speculation that Coutts, who was prevented from sailing for another team this time around under the terms of his departure from Alinghi, has been offered a deal to join American syndicate Oracle Racing.
Before Butterworth confirmed that he wanted to stick with Alinghi, the rumour mill had him, Phipps, Fleury, Daubney and Jones all moving with Coutts to Oracle.
Butterworth said he did not know what Coutts was planning, but said he would love it were Coutts to return to Alinghi, improbable as that might be.
"I don't know what Russell is up to," he said.
"He's keeping it a secret, but I would love him to come back here and take over his old job. I don't think that it's possible but that's what I would like."
Butterworth said winning the Auld Mug for a fifth time had become a major ambition for him.
Apart from his ex-Team NZ colleagues, he hoped to retain as many of the Alinghi sailing crew as possible.
Once the present campaign was wrapped up, he would move back to Geneva with his family.
"I have a lot of friends around the lake and I love the lifestyle there," he said.
"I'm looking forward to putting my kids back in school."
- NZPA