‘Virgin Money’ is a 99 foot super maxi race yacht owned by Alex Jackson (USA). Jackson began working with Mike Sanderson in 2007 to develop the concept for this record breaking yacht. Sanderson brought in Juan Kouyoumidjian, TEAMORIGIN’s principal designer, to become the lead designer of ‘Virgin Money’.

The yacht was launched in April 2008 and competed in its first event, the Newport to Bermuda race, in June 2008 where it took line honors, the distinction of being the first boat to cross the finish line. The yacht is based in Newport, Rhode Island.

‘Virgin Money’ is normally crewed by 20-30 team members depending on the type of racing. For the record breaking attempt, up to half of the crew is from the TEAMORIGIN sailing squad, the British America’s Cup Challenger team. The remainder are comprised of a number of Olympic and World Champions as well as America’s Cup and Volvo Ocean Race experts.

On board the boat the crew will be split into watch systems, but the reality is that the crew will get very little sleep during their record attempt. The crew will be split into four hour watch systems, during which time the 'watch' on duty will be responsible for steering the boat (cover helming), navigating and strategizing, trimming the sails and having dedicated mast men and bowmen. Two of the team will always be on watch at the navigation station, with this duty split between co-Skippers Alex Jackson, Richard Branson, Mike Sanderson and navigator Stan Honey. The job of the navigation team is to monitor performance, weather, and radar and to keep in contact with the shore based met team. When off duty the team can catch up on sleep in shared 'hot' bunking and shared sleeping bags on the high side of the boat.

With the yacht aiming to cross the Atlantic Ocean in less than a week, the yacht, its crew and all of its sails and navigational equipment will be tested to their limits.