A prestigious line-up of Britain's finest sailing talents was announced today to compete in the next America's Cup.

Olympic medallist Ben Ainslie was named as skipper for Team Origin, the country's challenge for the most prestigious prize in the yachting calendar.

Team principal Sir Keith Mills and director Mike Sanderson unveiled the roll call at the Southampton International Boat Show.

They named the sailing squad as well as the design and management team behind the effort for the 33rd America's Cup, to be contested in Valencia, Spain, in 2009.

Sir Keith said the squad included the finest sailing talent from Britain and around the world.

He added: "This is a British challenge. At least 50% of our team is British.

"The funding is British, the flag is British, the race boats will be built in Britain, GBR will appear on the mainsail of every one of our racing yachts".

Although a new squad, 70% of the line-up has previous America's Cup experience, with four members of the team being past winners, five are round-the-world race winners and two are recent Olympic gold medallists.

Mr Sanderson added: "This is a modern team, diverse in its origins but already solidly thinking as one group with one aim - to ultimately win the America's Cup for Britain."

Triple Olympic medallist Ainslie added: "This is a fantastic challenge and I am really honoured to be in the position of leading a sailing team which I believe has the ability to go out and win the America's Cup.

"We now all need to get on with the huge amount of work that lies ahead of us".

Team Origin is a commercially-led squad which will run on a mixture of private and sponsor funding.

The British members of the Team Origin sailing squad are Ainslie as skipper, Iain Percy as tactician, Rob Greenhalgh as strategist, Ian Moore as navigator, Andrew Simpson as aft grinder and Neal MacDonald as mainsheet trimmer.

Other Britons include grinders Chris Brittle, David Carr and Ian Weighell, bowman Matt Cornwell and mastman George Skuodas.

From Poland, Pawel Bielecki will be a grinder, from New Zealand there will be trimmer Robbie Naismith and mid bowman Kevin Batten, from France mastman Julien Cressant, from Ireland bowman Justin Slattery and from Australia boat captain Nick Bice.

The design team will be led by British co-ordinator Andy Claughton and principal designer will be Argentinian Juan Kouyoumdjian.

The America's Cup is considered to be the "Holy Grail" of international yachting.

It is the longest contested trophy, with the first race held in 1851 when the schooner America beat competition from 14 British yachts to win a silver ewer, affectionately known as the "Auld Mug", originally offered as a prize by the Royal Yacht Squadron.