Hannah Mills and Ben Ainslie, the most decorated female and male Olympic sailors of all time, have launched a new high performance pathway scheme for female and youth sailors, called the Athena Pathway Programme. The aim is to build the skills needed so young and women sailors can take their career trajectory into events such as the America’s Cup and SailGP.
The 37th America’s Cup is set to include the first ever Women’s America’s Cup, with a Challenger series and final match race held within the main event at Barcelona in 2024.
A key aim of the Athena Pathway is to form a British team ready to win the 2024 Women’s America’s Cup, while a longer term goal is to develop female sailors to eventually sail within a mixed Cup crew.
While there's no shortage of talented and skilled female inshore sailors, the challenge is to bridge the skills and experience gap to move into foiling classes such as the AC75 and F50, which are largely crewed by male sailors who have existing America’s Cup experience.
To fast-track the female sailors’ learning in high-performance foiling sailing, the Athena squad will train on a 26ft ‘Easy to Fly’ foiling catamaran, primarily based out of Weymouth. Initial recru
