Billionaire vs Sailing Champion: Yacht Ownership Battle

0:00On March 22nd, billionaire Sir Jim Rackliffe, owner of Manchester United, and head of INIAS, is suing four-time Olympic sailing champion Sir Ben. Ainsley over a 180 million-pound yacht built for the Americas Cup. The high-tech boat named Britannia was key to Britain's best-ever performance in the race last year in Barcelona. Rackliffe poured around 350 million pounds into Ainsley's team across two campaigns, first in Auckland in 2021, and then, in Barcelona, in 2024, they reached the final of a loss to New Zealand, marking a huge step forward for British sailing with help from Mercedes Formula One tech. Tensions boiled over soon after, leading to a messy split. Ainsley launched his own team, now called GB1 and backed by investors while Rackliffe first planned to compete without him, but later pulled out of, the 2027 event in Naples. This weekend, INIAS accused Ainsley's group of taking the boat without permission, calling it theirs after massive investments in design and building.

1:02Ainsley's team insists the yacht has always been theirs, and plans to use it for the next Americas Cup. Legal battles are just heating up between these two British sports powerhouses, with ownership of the valuable asset and future racing plans hanging in the balance.