British America's Cup team helmsman Andy Beadsworth will skipper an entry on the world match racing circuit over the next two years in preparation for the next Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series.

Beadsworth, from Titchfield in Hampshire, was the starting helmsman and strategist for Peter Harrison's GBR Challenge syndicate in the recent challenger trials in New Zealand.

"I want to compete successfully in the America's Cup," said Beadsworth, who has represented Great Britain twice at the Olympic Games in the match racing discipline and is a four-time British national champion.

"Alinghi showed you need a very strong sailing team as well as a fast boat to win the America's Cup and the standard is only ever going to get better," continued Beadsworth.

"Crew work and tactics will make the winning difference if the yachts have equal boatspeed and those skills need to sharpened on the world match racing circuit.

"Peter Harrison is still considering the future of GBR Challenge and is only investing in design and fundraising programmes. There is no sailing programme at present.

"We're actively looking for our own match racing sponsor and financing this ourselves in the meantime."

Beadsworth's crew will include GBR Challenge trimmers Richard Sydenham and Ian Budgen and bowman Matt Cornwell.

"Our first step is to get racing and build our world ranking to a point where we'll get invitations to all the major match racing events in 2004.

"Then we need to start winning grade one events and Swedish Match tour events.

"The goal will then be to win the match racing world championship and take that momentum into the next America's Cup, hopefully with a British team."

Past match racing world champions include three-time Cup winning skipper Russell Coutts from Alinghi, Oracle-BMW Racing's afterguard of Chris Dickson and Peter Holmberg and Dean Barker and Bertrand Pace from Team New Zealand.

"Everyone is expecting to see more challengers in the next Cup series in Europe and the world match racing circuit will be the showcase for those teams.

"We need to get out there and racing those teams to stand a chance of beating them in the America's Cup.

"We hope a sponsor will seize the opportunity of backing our team and increase Britain's chances of winning the America's Cup in the future," concluded Beadsworth.

Their first event is the grade one Elba Cup in Italy in May, one of the Swedish Match Tour events.

Press Release, 3 March 2003