Three-time America’s Cup athlete Neil Hunter is returning to the Emirates Great Britain SailGP Team for the new season. The 29-year-old from Scotland’s Isle of Arran has been with the British team since Season 1 and is the first new season signing to be announced for the British team. Hunter will resume his role as Grinder on-board the Emirates GBR F50 for SailGP’s fifth season, which kicks off with the Emirates Dubai Sail Grand Prix presented by P&O Marinas on 23-24 November.
Hunter will be returning to Grinding after a stint as a Cyclor with INEOS Britannia for the 37th America’s Cup, where the team made history by not only winning the Louis Vuitton Cup and entering the America’s Cup Match, but also becoming the first British team to score points in the match for 90 years.
Hunter said: “I’m really looking forward to getting back to SailGP. We’ve got a great squad and we can’t wait for the season to start in Dubai. It’s going to be an epic season with some of the best venues SailGP has ever had, with the standout being a home event for us in the UK. It’s going to be full on and some seriously tight racing with 12 teams on the course but we’re buzzing to get out there for what will hopefully be our best season yet.”
Sailing was something that was embedded in the Hunter family, as his mother, Sally, was part of the first-ever all female crew to sail around the world. The history-making team set sail on the yacht Maiden in the Whitbread Round The World Race in 1989-90, where they achieved the best result for a British boat since 1977.
Hunter was born in 1995 and his racing career began early on in Optimists. By age 16, he was quickly progressing into the International 420 youth class and Scottish RYA’s 420 Squad before moving onto the 29er class sailing with his younger brother, Rory. At the age of 18, Neil and Rory progressed to a 49er and they trained on their own every weekend for 18 months in Scotland between studying for a degree in Naval Architecture at Strathclyde University. The training paid off and they achieved multiple results in the 49er including 2x National Championships. The Hunter brothers were then invited to join the British Sailing Team Podium Potential Squad and they moved to Weymouth to train full-time.
© Samo Vidic for SailGP
In early 2016, Neil was invited to sail with the BAR Academy team at the first Extreme Sailing Series event in Oman. At the time, the British Challenger for the 35th America’s Cup, Ben Ainslie Racing (BAR), launched an Academy programme. Neil immediately applied and was accepted into the squad. He was part of the British team that won the Youth America’s Cup in Bermuda and was called up to join the senior squad for the Cup as a Grinder. He went on to do the same role for the British team in the 36th America’s Cup before switching to a Cyclor for this year’s event in Barcelona.
Emirates GBR will be announcing the rest of its crew in the build-up to the start of the new season, which will be the league’s most expansive to date, unfolding over a 12-month period across five continents. The 2025 Season will feature new events in Brazil, Germany, Switzerland and Auckland, as well as a return to Great Britain on 19-20 July.