BAR Technologies, the developer of large rigid wind sails being tested by major charterer Cargill, has brought in a former Formula 1 racing team director as its chief operating officer.
Simon Roberts, former Williams Racing managing director and team principal, will work alongside the senior leadership team at the UK-based company. BAR is a spin-off from Olympic sailing champion Ben Ainslie’s attempts to win the yacht racing America’s Cup.
Roberts will work alongside chief executive John Cooper, who also has a Formula 1 background and chief technical officer Simon Schofield and head of engineering Lauren Eatwell who come from the yacht racing and design worlds.
Roberts joined Williams in June 2020 after 17 years at McLarens as operations director and chief operating officer.
He is expected to bring experience in the management of large capital engineering programmes to take BAR’s WindWings sail technology through its manufacturing partnerships to the shipping market.
BAR partnered Cargill last October to retrofit two WindWings to a chartered kamsarmax bulker with the expectation they can deliver annualised fuel savings of up to 30% from the vessel going into operation in early 2022.
Cooper has previously told TradeWinds that Cargill and BAR are discussing fitting the sails to MR2 tankers and bulk carriers after the test of the first retrofit.
The company has also tied up a deal with Norway’s Yara Marine Technologies covering the assembly and maintenance of WindWings.
Roberts will also support BAR’s technology products for other sectors including commercial workboat operations, leisure marine and special projects.
