Team Origin

Team Origin
Career
Yacht club	Royal Thames Yacht Club
Established	2007
Nation	United Kingdom
Team principal(s)	Sir Keith Mills
CEO	Grant Simmer
Skipper	Ben Ainslie
Notable sailors	Iain Percy Andrew Simpson
Notable victories	The 1851 Cup 2010 World Match Racing Tour
Yachts
Sail no.	Boat name
GBR–75	GBR 75

Team Origin is Great Britain's bid to compete in the 33rd and 34th America's Cups. The syndicate was founded by Sir Keith Mills, the man behind London's successful 2012 Olympic bid. Grant Simmer is the CEO and the team competes under the burgee of the Royal Thames Yacht Club.

Britain's involvement in the America's Cup dates back to the very start when the Aurora was second in the original race won by America in 1851. Britain has unsuccessfully challenged many times since.

History

Sir Keith Mills initially announced his intention to create a team to challenge for the Americas' Cup on the 4th of January 2007, and announced the decision to appoint Mike Sanderson as Team Director on March 29, 2007. In May of the same year, Team Origin announced it was becoming a partner of the RYA Onboard scheme, which has over 60 centres across the UK. Mike Sanderson commented at the time that he hoped to "raise awareness and participation of the sport.

Less than a month later, it was announced that Team Origin would be partnering the Royal Thames Yacht Club (of which Sir Keith Mills is a member), supposedly because of its balance between old and new, tradition and technology, and also its central location in Knightsbridge, London.

After its acquisition of SUI-75 in May 2007, an almost identical boat to SUI-64, which was used by the Swiss to win the 31st Americas' Cup match, all that was missing was the crew, the majority of which were announced in September 2007 (See below).

In December 2007 the team announced its intention to scale-back activities in anticipation of legal wrangling causing significant delays to the 33rd Cup's schedule, anticipating that 2009's cup would be delayed by at least 2 years.

Team Origin competed in the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series in 2009 and are a participant of the Louis Vuitton Trophy. In 2010 Team Origin appointed Grant Simmer as the team's new CEO who replaced Mike Sanderson.

In August 2010 The Royal Thames Yacht Club and Team Origin hosted BMW Oracle in Cowes to compete in The 1851 Cup. There were 2 trophies to be won. The Royal Thames Cup for a race clockwise around the Isle of Wight which was a re enactment of the race in 1851 which initiated the Americas Cup which BMW Oracle won. The trophy for the overall 1851 event was The Trafalgar Cup for the match racing series which was won by Team Origin.

In 2010 Ben Ainslie and Team Origin won a Tour Card for the World Match Racing Tour, and despite only entering six of the nine events they won in Sweden, Bermuda and the Monsoon Cup in Malaysia and were crowned ISAF Match Racing World Champions 2010.

In 2010, it was announced that Mills had scrapped plans to campaign for the 2013 America’s Cup.^[1]

Team Members

Management:

Role	Name	Nationality
Team Principal	Sir Keith Mills	GBR
Partner and Investor	Charles Dunstone	GBR
Team Director	Grant Simmer	AUS

Boat Crew:

Role	Name	Nationality
Helmsman	Ben Ainslie	GBR
Tactician	Iain Percy	GBR
Strategist and Aft Grinder		GBR
Grinder	Chris Brittle	GBR
Grinder	David Carr	GBR
Grinder	Pawel Bielecki	POL
Mastman	Julien Cressant	FRA
Bowman	Matt Cornwell	GBR
Boat Captain	Nick Bice	AUS

Boats

In May 2007 TEAMORIGIN announced that they had purchased SUI-75, the training and testing boat used by former America's Cup holders Alinghi. It was rebranded GBR-75 during the 32nd America's Cup in Valencia, and sailed in TEAMORIGIN livery for the first time on Saturday 14 July 2007, off Port America, Valencia, Spain.

References

1. "Team Origin's plans for America's Cup scrapped by team owner Sir Keith Mills". Telegraph. Retrieved 28 May 2013.

External links

• Official Website of TEAMORIGIN
• Images of TEAMORIGIN
• The Afterguard Independent America's Cup blog with specific interest in TEAMORIGIN