A new face on the dock at the 44Cup Marstrand is Phil Robertson, tactician on board event host Torbjörn Törnqvist’s Artemis Racing. A highly successful match racer and World Champion, Robertson is currently at the peak of his career straddling the flying catamarans of Sail GP, the international multihull circuit conceived by 44Cup founder Russell Coutts, and next year will be co-helming the flying AC75 with one of the key challengers for the 38th America’s Cup.
But this week Robertson is firmly back in displacement mode after received a last minute call-up to join the Swedish team here. Although he is a Kiwi, he is married to a Swede with whom he has two children and for the last eight years he has lived in nearby Gothenburg. In fact an antipodean enclave of former match racers from this era exists in Gothenberg including GeMera Racing’s David Gilmour and Kyle Langford.
In fact his present domestic state of affairs occurred through sailing. Marstrand has long been a centre for match racing (a form of two boat racing that the 44Cup featured up until 2016) with Match Cup Sweden introduced in 1994 and evolving into one of Sweden’s top sports events, featuring over the years most of sailing’s top names including Russell Coutts (who won in 2001 and 2004) with David Gilmour’s father, America’s Cup legend Peter Gilmour the most capped competitor with seven wins to his name.
A young Robertson first came to Marstrand in 2009, when he was coach for Match Cup Sweden founder and another multiple winner, Magnus Holmberg, then in semi-retirement. “He used my crew that year and it was a nice gesture that he brought me along as a coach - not that I probably offered it much, but I had a great time!” Robertson returned with his own team the following year and from then on became a fixture of the giant event, finishing runner-up in 2013. However Robertson would become best known in the sailing in 2016 when the World Match Racing Tour and its prime Swedish event moved into higher performance M32 catamarans. That year Robertson not only won the championship but walked away with the winner’s cheque for a cool US$ 1 million (earning him the nickname ‘Phillionaire’ – in fairness, the winnings were shared with both his crew and other teams). “I still get called Phillionaire every now and then! That probably launched my career – it definitely put us a bit more on the radar. It certainly hasn't been easy since then, but it gave me a couple more opportunities.”
Subsequently at the helm of the Oman Air catamaran he went on to podium in the last two seasons of the Extreme Sailing Series, and won two M32 World Championships flying the colours of China ONE NINGBO before graduating up to be skipper of the Chinese team in the first season of SailGP in 2019. That campaign evolved into the Spanish SailGP team for second two before he moved on to establish the Canadian SailGP team for seasons 3 and 4. In 2025 Robertson joined Jimmy Spithill’s Red Bull Italy SailGP team alongside GeMera Racing’s Kyle Langford.
Robertson is now en route to achieving his ultimate position in the sport as co-helmsman of Ernesto Bertarelli’s Tudor Team Alinghi, coincidentally with another former Artemis Racing RC44 tactician, Olympic Laser gold medallist Paul Goodison. For the last America’s Cup in Barcelona Robertson coached the Swiss team but has been able to step on board the AC75 race boat.
“It was a nice way to get into it, in the last cycle, as part of the coaching staff and a sparring partner for the team in the AC40s,” says Robertson. “It's certainly a bit of a short campaign this one, but obviously there's a long-term vision, which continues far beyond May next year, when the next America’s Cup kicks off.”
Racing the RC44 this week has not quite been Robertson’s first experience with the owner-driver one design. He helped commission an RC44 back in at the dawn of his career in 2009 but the 44Cup Marstrand this week has been the first time he has raced one in anger.
“Obviously you follow it a little as it's progressed over the years, and talk to people involved,” says Robertson. “It's a very cool class - very close, tight racing and a great bunch of owners. It seems like a very nice circuit to be on. I think everyone enjoys sailing in this class.
“The racing has been tight from first to last - we've definitely found that. I'm just finding my feet - what the boats can and can't do; trying to get them in the right spot at the right time. It's certainly difficult. We're leaving points out there…
This is the first time Robertson has sailed under the Artemis Racing colours although he knows and has raced with many of the team before and has been to Belfast to practice using Artemis Technologies’ full scale F50 catamaran simulator. “They're obviously a really nice team, and Torbjörn's a great owner and sets up great campaigns. So it's nice to finally see it from the inside for a change.”
An issue, which Robertson jokes about is the relative speed of the RC44 to the boats he regularly races these days. While the RC44 is considered high performance in the displacement monohull world and is renowned for its ability to sail and race well from 5 knots to 25 knots, there are times when Robertson regular rides, the F50 and AC75 can sail five times as fast.
“The speed is definitely something which is very different, but it's still the same principles. You've still got to communicate well. You've got to put the boat in the right place on the course. You've got to start well. All the fundamentals are the same, but the practicality of it is just obviously quite a bit slower. It's nice to have a bit of time to think, but quite often that's not the best thing because you overthink it…”
The next 44Cup event in Cowes over 23-27 September conflicts with the America’s Cup Louis Vuitton Preliminary Regatta in Naples, so Robertson will not be able to be with us that week. However he concludes, “It's definitely a fun class. I'd love to come back.”