Although I’m not a full-blown ardent sailing fan, every four years I do get excited about the America’s Cup. Like many Australians, I can vividly remember the euphoria around the successful 1983 challenge by Alan Bond and how John Bertrand and the crew of ‘Australia 2’ came from behind to eventually beat Dennis Connor and the American crew on ‘Liberty’, four races to three. In doing so, Australia broke a 132-year winning streak by the Americans.

There’s a great Netflix documentary titled ‘Untold – The Race of the Century’  which looks at that amazing win and features some of the people who pulled it off. There’s also a teaser on the link which gives an insight into the doco.

Consequently, for the last 12 months or so, I’ve been following the progress of the British team INEOS Britannia which although winning the Louis Vuitton Cup and in doing so getting the right to challenge Team New Zealand for this years America’s Cup, were unable to take the title. Even though the first America’s Cup in 1851 was raced around the Isle of Wright off the south coast of England, the British have never won the cup and many who thought that 2024 was going to be the year, unfortunately were bitterly disappointed.

Sir James Ratcliffe, a British billionaire, chemical engineer, and businessman is the chairman and CEO of the INEOS Chemicals Group which he founded in 1998 and the chief backer of the 2021 and 2024 INEOS Britannia America’s Cup team.

Ratcliffe is also the founder of INEOS Automotive which in 2022 released their first car that could easily be confused as a Land Rover Defender, the 5-door INEOS Grenadier and 12 months later, the INEOS Quartermaster utility. To continue the car connection, in 2020 INEOS also signed a five-year agreement to become a principal partner of Mercedes AMG F1 Team.

My interest in the INEOS Britannia team was not so much sailing oriented, but more so the automotive connection, particularly as following Teams New Zealand’s recent victory one of their crew said in an interview that he “felt like they had not only beaten Britain, but had also beaten Mercedes Benz!”

So how much input did the Mercedes F1 team have in the building of this racing boat? One can understand there would be synergies with aerodynamics etc but how does that equate to being under water etc, this Sailing Today UK article looks at the relationship between the two sporting genres and what Mercedes F1 brought to the table in an endeavour to win the elusive America’s Cup.

INEOS Britannia & Mercedes F1 Partnership: British Tech Transfer – sailingtoday.co.uk

It’s also fascinating as to how these boats (called foiling boats not sailing boats) actually work, one of Britannia’s grinders and a very experienced international sailor Freddie Carr, explains the workings of INEOS Britannia and also talks about their connection with Mercedes F1 in this video:

INEOS Britannia and Mercedes F1 join forces for the 37th America’s Cup – INEOS

Whilst looking at synergies between automotive and marine, especially re power sources like Electricity and Hydrogen, this Instagram message from INEOS Britannia promotes their Hydrogen powered chase boat, which is exciting, especially as INEOS Chemicals just happen to be one of the worlds biggest manufacturers of Hydrogen.

INEOS Britannia Hydrogen Chase Boat – Instagram

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