TEAMORIGIN confirms entry into Louis Vuitton Trophy in Nice

TEAMORIGIN, the British America’s Cup sailing team, today confirmed its entry in the new Louis Vuitton Trophy regatta to be held in Nice, France. This event, the first in a set of match race regattas to be sailed in America’s Cup Class yachts, kicks off in Nice in five weeks time (7-22 November 2009) where eight teams from seven nations are expected to compete. The Louis Vuitton Trophy regattas then plan to move on to events in four other venues around the world in 2010.

TEAMORIGIN’s entry in the Louis Vuitton Trophy regattas forms the mainstay of the team’s extensive sailing programme for 2010, which also includes the Audi MedCup series in TP52 racing yachts and the World Match Race Tour. The ‘Race for Change’ programme announced by the team two weeks ago in London presented the team’s strategic partnership with their Environmental Partner, the Carbon Trust, along with a compelling Partnership proposition to attract commercial partners.

“When looking at the sailing programme for the end of 2009 and 2010 we wanted to compete in events that would give all parts of our team, not just the sailors, further hands-on operational experience,” said Sir Keith Mills, Team Principal.

“From the point of view of the Louis Vuitton Trophy regattas, we decided to become a preferential shareholder in the parent company, as well as to allow our America’s Cup training yacht, GBR-75, to be used as one of the race boats for the forthcoming Nice event. The Louis Vuitton Trophy regattas are owned by the teams themselves through the parent company, the World Sailing Team Association (WSTA), and are promoted and organised in association with Louis Vuitton and a local yacht club in a democratic and transparent manner. This is something we feel strongly about and we intend to play an active role in the management of the series,” concluded Sir Keith.

“With this arrangement our shore crew is actively involved in preparing and maintaining the boats and keeping the team racing during the event. Our management team is also involved in the commercial and event management side of the project. This considerably enhances TEAMORIGIN’s preparations for the America’s Cup”, commented Mike Sanderson, Team Director.

Each of the five Louis Vuitton Trophy regattas take the form of a match race event consisting of round robins, semi-finals and finals, similar to the format used at the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger races for the America’s Cup from 1983 to 2007. The races are sailed in America’s Cup Class boats provided by the organisation so that competing teams rotate through the pairs of boats as the event progresses.

“From a sailing point of view we have put together as ambitious a sailing programme as we could possibly want for an America’s Cup challenger in waiting. This provides a combination of match racing in big boats at the Louis Vuitton Trophy regattas, against some of the best teams in the world, a match race programme in smaller boats on the World Match Race Tour and top-level fleet racing with TP52s in the Audi MedCup. I cannot think of a better way to push the sailing and overall team to develop in areas that will benefit us for the long term,” commented Ben Ainslie, Skipper and Helmsman.

TEAMORIGIN is back on the water this week at the World Match Race Tour event in Hamilton, Bermuda (Argo Group Gold Cup) where the team of Ben Ainslie, Iain Percy, Christian Kamp and Matt Cornwell will race against 23 other teams in what promises to be a hotly contested event. Racing starts tomorrow on Tuesday 6th October and goes on until Sunday 11th October.

For more information please visit www.teamorigin.com