Ben Ainslie's America's Cup challenge is now INEOS Team GB
Thursday 26 April 2018 - In one of London's oldest maritime pubs, INEOS, one of the world’s largest petrochemicals companies, and the largest privately held company in the UK, announced that it has launched INEOS Team GB, partnering with Ben Ainslie and his team to challenge for the America's Cup. The team will represent Royal Yacht Squadron Racing, the club affiliated with the Royal Yacht Squadron.
In his column in the Daily Telegraph, Ainslie said, "These are incredibly exciting times for the team in Portsmouth. It has been a full-on period and a massive learning curve for me, but I think we are in good shape. Clearly, the Kiwis and Italians have had the class rule for longer. And the Kiwis, in particular, are in a good place with their simulation. But I think that is a strength of ours as well. Compared with where we were at this stage in the last cycle, it is light years apart. We are in the process of signing up more sailors as we speak, and we will be launching our first test boat – half scale – in the summer."
More details for Club Members below...
Key team members include
- Ben Ainslie, Team Principal and Skipper
- Grant Simmer, CEO
- Nick Holroyd, Chief Designer
- Giles Scott, Tactician
- Jono Macbeth, Sailing Team Manager
- Michel Marie, Manufacturing Manager
- James Stagg, Operations Manager
- Jo Grindley, Chief Commercial Officer
Ainslie described the partnership with INEOS as a "service agreement" under which "the racing arm of BAR" provides the boats and the team. He said of the arrangement, "It is a massive shift from the previous model we had, which had been to build a commercially sustainable structure through a mixture of investors and commercial partners." When they were unable to raise enough money from existing investors and commercial partners, they made the decision to partner with a single partner who demanded exclusivity - INEOS.
Of INEOS CEO Jim Ratcliffe, Ainslie said, "Jim’s quid pro quo – quite reasonably – was that if he was going to inject this much into the project, it needed to be a completely blank slate. I will not lie, there were some detailed conversations with our existing investors and commercial partners. They were disappointed." Ainslie thanked original investors, especially Sir Keith Mills, Chris Bake and Sir Charles Dunstone.