Simmer was most recently Managing Director and Design Co-ordinator of Alinghi, winners of the America’s Cup in 2003 and 2007, but his America’s Cup credentials include being navigator aboard Australia II in 1983 .

Grant Simmer, CEO,commented on his new role,

“I am delighted to join TEAMORIGIN and am looking forward to working with Sir Keith, Ben and all the team to develop and execute a plan to overcome the other Challengers and lead us into the next America’s Cup Match. Fortunately TEAMORIGIN appears to have great strengths and leadership in each department. Mike Sanderson, who has now left the team, played a key role in managing the team through some difficult times and the team is in pretty good shape. I anticipate each area simply getting on with their jobs and that I will play a key role in overseeing and coordinating their activities.

TEAMORIGIN has had to survive during several years of uncertainty while the Deed of Gift Match was resolved. Now, with the new Defender in place, we are all anxiously awaiting announcements of their plans for the 34th Cup. These are exciting times for sure, and these plans will include the format of racing, type of boats to be raced, the dates of competition and many other significant details. We should know all this information by the end of September and can then develop and refine our strategy leading to the next Cup.”

Simmer’s new role as CEO sees him take responsibility for the sporting and technical activities of the team as well as overseeing the commercial operations.

Sir Keith Mills, Team Principal, added his thoughts:

“Today’s announcement is part of the team’s long term strategy to enhance the leadership and management. We are moving into the next phase of operations and Grant brings with him invaluable experience from both a Challenger and Defenders perspective. Our mission is to win the America’s Cup and today’s announcement forms a fundamental part of that strategy.”

This will be Simmer’s eighth America’s Cup. He first competed in 1983 at the age of 27 as Navigator onboard Australia II. There he played a part in sporting history when Australia II became the first challenger to ever win the America’s Cup ending 132 years of US supremacy and the longest winning streak in sports history. Since that momentous win, Simmer has had diverse roles and responsibilities in another seven America’s Cup campaigns, culminating with the Swiss Alinghi team, winning the Cup in 2003 and 2007 in the role of Design Coordinator and most recently as the team’s Managing Director.

Ben Ainslie, Skipper and Helmsman, added his views,

“This is great news for TEAMORIGIN and it comes at a time when we are finally seeing some resolution to the past few years of event delays. Soon we hope to have a detailed Protocol and programme for the 34th America’s Cup.  Grant’s experience and talent will bring strong leadership and structure to the team at this critical time and his sailing and design skills will enhance our strengths as we move forward.”

More TEAMORIGIN News…

Audi has also been involved with the America’s Cup, and will support Azzurra in upcoming Louis Vuitton Trophy scheduled to be held in La Maddalena, Sardinia from 22nd May to 6th June 2010.  Audi has been a partner of the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda for several seasons, and the agreement represents an important development for the team.

Riccardo Bonadeo, Commodore of the YCCS and President of Azzurra, commented:

“The partnership with Azzurra is a natural progression from the long and productive association that exists between this distinguished automotive company and our yacht club. Audi simply had to be present at the Louis Vuitton Trophy event held on our home waters against the wonderful backdrop of the Costa Smeralda which boasts one of the most spectacular and challenging regatta courses in the world. The Audi brand has always been synonymous with style and excellence, an image that fits perfectly with a sporting team of the calibre of Azzurra.”

Team Azzurra was launched in October 2009 as a collaboration between the YCCS and Giovannni Maspero. Named after the first Italian challenger for the America’s Cup, the team is led by skipper and helmsman Francesco Bruni, supported by tactician Tommaso Chieffi. Francesco Bruni has taken part in two America’s Cups and three Olympic Games. Tommaso Chieffi is also one of the best Italian racing yachtsmen, with four America’s Cup and one Olympic Games to his credit. The rest of the crew is made up by match race, America’s Cup and one-design sailors.

The team boast nearly 7000 facebook fans, which is quite a lot when you consider that TEAMORIGIN have 1850.

Read more about the Louis Vuitton Trophy.

Over the last few years, the team has competed regularly in the RC44 Championship, a combination of fleet racing and match racing in boats designed by and named after BMW ORACLE CEO Russell Coutts. Despite a brief appearance in the Extreme Sailing Series Europe, brought about by the multihull nature of the last America’s Cup, the team will focus on monohull racing in 2010.

The first even that will see BMW ORACLE back on the water is the RC 44 Austria Cup. The team will compete in two boats at the event which has become a real fixture of the Austrian sailing calendar.

Larry Ellison and Russell Coutts will be competing under the BMW ORACLE Racing banner, while the winning skipper of the 33rd America’s Cup team, James Spithill, will be at the helm of a boat currently named ‘Boat 17’. Crew from the BMW ORACLE Racing team will be sailing on both boats.

The team at PROFS have made the RC 44 Austria Cup a popular stop on the circuit, set amongst the Austrian Alps on Lake Traunsee. The beautiful mountain lake is surrounded by ‘postcard perfect’ vistas, but the weather can be unpredictable, offering up challenging conditions for racing. The idea is to use the lake as a showcase for a large sailing festival, bringing tourists from miles around to experience all the region has to offer. The presence of America’s Cup winning sailors is a great drawcard for the event.

Ten world-class teams are expected in Austria, including the early leader in the RC 44 Championship, Artemis. The regatta is from April 29th to May 4th.

Following the RC 44 Austria Cup, BMW ORACLE Racing will return to Cup style racing at the Louis Vuitton Trophy in La Maddalena, on the Italian coast of Sardinia, beginning on May 22.

Jimmy Spithill said:

“I’m really looking forward to getting back on the water and racing against the top teams again. Having had a look at the Louis Vuitton Trophy regatta in Auckland in February, I know we have a lot of work ahead of us to get our team competing at the highest level again. The RC 44 circuit and Louis Vuitton Trophy events are a great way for us to start that process.”

The team will continue to engage with fans via the social media platforms they enabled for the America’s Cup. In addition to the main team website at www.bmworacleracing.com, there is a team blog at http://bmworacleracingblog.blogspot.com, a YouTube page at http://www.youtube.com/bmworacleracingteam, and a Twitter feed at: http://twitter.com/bmworacle2010.

The vehicle for this ambitious plan is GREEK CHALLENGE, which surprised many in the first Louis Vuitton Pacific Series in 2009. Since then, GREEK CHALLENGE has been fairly quiet. Unlike other America’s Cup super-teams like TEAMORIGIN and Emirates Team NZ, GREEK CHALLENGE has not been competing in the World Match Racing Tour or the Audi Med Cup. Instead, Buseas has been qorking away at building a base for the team and generating support in Greece for entry into the Louis Vuitton Series.

To that end, GREEK CHALLENGE has announced that the team will be based in the greek city of Kalamata.

The Mayor of Kalamata Mr. Panayotis E. Nikas confirmed today the commitment of the City to host GREEK CHALLENGE and other America’s Cup teams during their training sessions. Furthermore, GREEK CHALLENGE is put under the auspice of the City and becomes its first Official Supplier towards the 34th AC and the LVT. The Mayor along with GREEK CHALLENGE will shape the coastal development of the City and will prepare to host international regattas in the future.

The city has an international airport and an important harbour which part of it will be developed to host GREEK CHALLENGE. The wind conditions are perfect for AC sailing and the weather conditions are excellent throughout the year. In 1924 the Nautical Club of Kalamata was formed and since then is has developed many different sporting activities.

GREEK CHALLENGE has applied to the port authorities to provide an area of 1700 square meters of warehouse space and 5200 square meters of docks to develop its base and looking forward to the finalization of the process by the end of April in order to start developing its base.

Panayotis E. Nikas, Mayor of Kalamata…”

GREEK CHALLENGE’s impressive debut in LVPS last year convinced us of their determination and commitment to the cause. Hosting the team(s) in our port will only enhance our city’s tourist industry and boost economic activity while Kalamata will develop to become as one of the most important sailing centres in Greece and the Mediterranean. In 1821 this city triggered the Greek Independence War and its liberation was the beginning of the Hellenic Republic. In a parallel GREEK CHALLENGE’s attempt to the America’s Cup will break the national sailing borders.”

Sotiris Buseas, CEO of GREEK CHALLENGE…

”The Mayor and Municipality of Kalamata has been supportive from the first day we announced our goals early 2007. The Messenian bay is a natural amphitheatre which will help us develop our team due to its perfect sailing conditions while our members will experience the hospitality and taste the gourmet cuisine of Kalamata. We are breaking new ground here. The people of Kalamata will have the chance to observe the birth of the most interesting sport project in Greece. We thank the people of this great city for their warm welcome”

The news comes six months after Teamorigin hired Pitch Non-Executive Chairman, Jon Teeman to secure commercial partnerships.

I-nfluence will work in unison with Team Origin’s own marketing team and attempt to broker sponsorship deals with team partners and official suppliers. The I-nfluence team includes Alistair Watkins, an Ex-Marketing Director of Alinghi and Martin Lowde, one of the men who were responsible for the Spice Girls and American Idol.

The NZ America’s Cup challenger has announced that the new official technical clothing supplier will be Gill. The word technical suggests that the door has been left open for a more fashion oriented brand to supply the team with off-the-water kit.

Gill, which is currently supporting the UK tri-services project; exercise Transglobe, will be supplying a range of if its technical product for both the prestigious Louis Vuitton Trophy events during 2010, and the TP52 taking part in this seasons Audi Medcup.

Emirates Team New Zealand Managing Director Grant Dalton said he is pleased to welcome Gill to the team.

“The partnership brings together Emirates Team New Zealand and Gill, an acknowledged world leader in research, development, design and production of high-performance technical sailing clothing. Gill is a brand the team is proud to wear.”

Founder and Chairman of Gill, Nick Gill commented

“we have been developing high performance technical clothing for exactly these environments and this partnership offers a great opportunity to have the gear on the water with a fabulous team which are at the absolute pinnacle of performance sailing. Our new Race Collection for example has been developed specifically for this area of the sport. In elite events such as these it is the details that make the difference between winning and losing. Our high performance garments will be exposed to the race environment which they were designed for, we trust that they will excel and hope that they may even make the difference that turns a 2nd into a 1st.”

There are certain things on a boat that are quite important – like ropes. Gleistein is the oldest family-owned industrial enterprise in the Hanseatic city of Bremen, perhaps not the most obvious choice for TEAMORIGIN, the British  Team intending to challenge for the 34th America’s Cup, but Gleistein has been selected as the “Official Rope Supplier” by TEAMORIGIN for 2010.

Gleistein will supply all rigging as TEAMORIGIN prepares its challenge for the world’s oldest and sailing’s most prestigious sporting trophy.

TEAMORIGIN recently announced the appointment of an environmental manger as part of their Race for Change, a partnership with the Carbon Trust tha aims to use sailing to increase awareness about environmental issues. ‘Race for Change’ will create opportunities commercial partners to support the sporting bid as well as demonstrate their commitment to fighting climate change.

Pushing the boundaries of technology while delivering an environmental message is going to be a challenge. While the sport is powered by the wind, the materials used in modern yacht racing are complicated man-made compounds with very long half lives. As the Gleistein website says:

“…High-strength fibres are also extremely versatile and form the basis of our broad range of products…  optically similar, but technically far superior natural fibre substitutes. Real natural fibres now play hardly any role in the yacht ropes sector.”

More…

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Aigle becomes official supplier of technical clothing for Spirit of Canada Ocean Challenges.

More environmental positioning in the announcement that Aigle will provide Derek Hatfield gear for the Velux 5 Oceans Race, which starts in October.

Aigle is actively involved in perpetual recycling and fully support the “Eco Circle” concept, the closed-loop recycling system for certain polyester products. Through recycling, you can help reduce waste and oil consumption. “Eco Circle” reduces energy and carbon-dioxide emissions by one-fifth compared with production or raw polyester material from petroleum. Aigle recognizes its responsibility to protect the environment by committing to minimize the ecological impact, both through behavior, design and development of products.

For more information about Spirit of Canada please visit: www.spiritofcanada.net

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OC Technology Announced as Partner of the Global Ocean Race.

The Global Ocean Race 2011-12 is has entered into a partnership with OC Technology.  Two OC Tracker units will be supplied for each Class40 entered in the Global Ocean Race.

The OC Tracker system uses the constellation of 66 Iridium satellites providing total global coverage for the duration of the race with a delay of between 30 seconds to three minutes at a scheduled reporting time for a yacht’s position, COG, SOG and DTF to be registered on the system’s secure server. The OC Tracker will be linked with the Global Ocean Race Geovoile Race Viewer providing precise data every six hours on the Global Ocean Race website.

Josh Hall, Race Director says:

“With OC Technology onboard as Race Partners we can be sure that our primary safety mechanism is of the highest standards. The massive side benefit of a top quality tracking system is that race followers can watch the event unfold on their screens via the Race Viewer which will show the boat’s positions, tracks and a wealth of other pertinent data.”

More…

Sir Keith Mills, who heads up TEAMORIGIN understands that for his ‘Race for Change’ to mean anything, it needs to be more than the Carbon Trust’s logo on the side of the boat.  The team has appointed  Dr Susie Tomson as Environmental Manager – an innovative move for a professional sports team to recruit a full time team member in such a role.

Susie Tomson joins from the Royal Yachting Association where she established their environmental programme, the Green Blue, and worked for the last 7 years as their Environmental Advisor. She brings over 15 years of experience in various aspects of natural resource management much of this balancing the interface between recreation and the environment. In her role as Environmental Manager for TEAMORIGIN she will work closely with the Carbon Trust, the team’s environmental partner, to measure, manage and reduce the team’s carbon footprint. The team plans that the Race for Change ethos becomes a strategic principle embedded into their day to day operations – guiding business decisions as well as team behaviour.

Sir Keith Mills, Team Principal, commented

“We have been progressing well in our assessment and planning stages with the Carbon Trust and have now reached the stage where we are ready to dedicate a full time resource within our organisation to move into the action stage. Susie’s role will involve the creation and implementation of the necessary policies, processes, actions and monitoring filters for TEAMORIGIN.”

Tom Delay, Chief Executive of the Carbon Trust, added:

“By appointing a full time environmental manager, TEAMORIGIN has demonstrated its commitment to the Race for Change concept and the carbon reduction journey. We look forward to working closely with Susie and the rest of the team over the coming months to show that sport has an important part to play in fighting climate change.”

The next stage for the team involves the completion and publication of the Carbon Policy for the team setting out the key stages of the plan, with associated timelines and projected targets for reduction of carbon emissions as well as improved efficiencies for the team. The carbon footprint and energy spend are already being monitored with a view to demonstrating real reductions as the team ramps up its activities.

Susie, together with the Carbon Trust, will also start working more closely with the team’s partners and suppliers – helping to guide and support them in their commitment to this vital initiative and showcasing efficiencies in their own businesses.

Susie commented on her new role,

“It is a real sign of progress and commitment to the Race for Change strategy for a sports team to engage such a role and as such adds much credibility to their plans. I believe I am one of the few Environmental Managers working for a professional sports team and I am really excited about the challenge. I think we have a really interesting story to share with the outside world about the journey ahead of us. To me this is all about improving the efficiency and effectiveness of TEAMORIGIN, hopefully helping to reduce costs and waste as well as carbon emissions and contributing to our goal of winning the America’s Cup.”

Vincenzo Onorato, who is the driving force behind Mascalzone Latino said:

“I am very proud of the fact that Audi, a prestigious car company with such great tradition in sponsoring the sailing world, has chosen to link its name to Mascalzone Latino. I would like to thank the President of the Volkswagen Group, Dr. Tartaglione, the Director of Audi Italy, Dr. Frisch and the Director of Audi Marketing, Dr Migliorini for the trust they have put in us. We share the values of excellence and of fair competition as an incentive to constant improvement, as individuals, as a team and from a technology development point of view.”

Vincenzo Onorato’s team will campaign in the Louis Vuitton Trophy, the Farr 40 and the Melges 32 class. Mascalzone Latino Audi Team will host the Italian round of the Louis Vuitton Trophy at La Maddalena in Sardinia from 22nd of May to the 6th of June.

Onorato said:

“La Maddalena will be at the center of media interest right at the beginning of the summer season and attention will be directed to the new infrastructure created for the G8 summit, later transferred to L’Aquila for the well-known reasons. This success was possible thanks to the decisions taken by the Government and by Dr Guido Bertolaso, who has asked me to coordinate the event. As the “hosting team”, Audi Mascalzone Latino Team wants to offer all competitors the best hospitality. My heart full thanks also goes to those who welcomed us, the Region of Sardinia, that is sponsoring our team in all stages of the Louis Vuitton Trophy, and that here is represented at the highest institutional level by the President of the Region Ugo Cappellacci.

Sardinia is a region with an enormous untapped potential, both in terms of nautical tourism and of all it offers as a whole. The interior landscape is extraordinary, but still unknown to most. The Louis Vuitton Trophy is a global event and Sardinia will have the opportunity of being added by travelers to their “Italian Grand Tour”.

The Volvo Ocean Race had been seen as a platform to deliver value to the Emirates, the team’s long time sponsor in the absence of a recognisable America’s Cup campaign.  According to the most recent news,  the Volvo race has been ditched for two reasons: it was proving too expensive and was superfluous to the team’s needs. Emirates Team NZ are committed to a TP52 campaign in the Audi Med Cup and the new Louis Vuitton Trophy.

Dalton hopes that with the DOG Match now happening in Valencia, the future of Emirates Team NZ in the America’s Cup will be more certain, once a winner is determined. Notwithstanding more court cases and the lack of wind in Spain, Grant Dalton is hoping to move on. He said:

‘I don’t for a minute discount the possibility of more delays but there’s now, for the first time in a long time, light at the end of the tunnel. ‘There’s a future for the team beckoning within days really. we are still here’ and ‘ready to race again’ once ‘there’s certainty in the future of the event’.

‘Above all else that is what we want, certainty. The best result for us is for the winner [of the deed-of-gift match] to announce a Challenger of Record and say the defender will enter into dialogue with the challengers. That’s about the best result we can hope for.’

‘My focus needs to now turn to raising money and getting the team back together again. My heart is still in a Volvo but it would have been a massive distraction and the board felt we needed to change course.