Iain Percy

Iain is a double Olympic champion and Great Britain’s most successful Star Class sailor of all time. Percy began sailing at the age of 4, when his family decided to take up a sport they could enjoy together. He began his career sailing at Weston Sailing Club in Southampton in an Optimist dinghy and hasn’t looked back.

Iain turned professional in 1998 and within two years was representing Great Britain at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, where he struck Gold, winning the highly technical Finn class. As a result of his gold medal, he was honored by the Queen and received an MBE. Iain changed classes for the 2004 Athens Olympics and chose to race alongside Steve Mitchell in the double-handed Star class, where he finished a disappointing sixth. In 2005 Iain decided to take a break from full time Olympic Class sailing and join America’s Cup challenger +39 Challenge as helmsman.

In 2006, Iain was back on the water in his Star with his new crew Andrew Simpson, his best friend of 25 years. The pair had a promising start to their Beijing Olympic campaign coming sixth in the Olympic Test Event and Bronze in the ISAF World Championships 2007. However a string of problems hampered their 2008 build up to the Games, which included coming 52nd in the Star World Championships. Where many athletes would have thrown the towel in Iain and Andrew showed true guts and determination to turn things around and get them selves to the start line at the Olympic regatta.

The Star class field was extremely competitive and included eight Olympic medalists and seven Star World Champions. After a disappointing start, Iain and Andy battled hard to get back into contention and were second going into the final Medal Race and showed true champion spirit to overhaul Fredrik Loof and Anders Ekstrom, regatta leaders from day one, and take home the gold... a truly phenomenal performance which had the BBC commentary team in tears.

Following his success in Beijing, Iain turned his attention to America’s Cup Sailing as ‘Tactician’ for Team Origin, the British backed challenger, which included a World Match Racing title in 2011. He will teamed up again with Andrew for the 2012 Olympics where they won a Silver, being narrowly edged out by the Swedish team in the final medal race.

He is currently the Director of Sailing at the America’s Cup Challenger Artemis Racing. He is responsible for leading the on water team and making sure their 2013 campaign is on track.