Emirates Spinnaker Tower five years, repainting and rebranding the tower in the sponsor's choice of colours and logos and new signage to be installed "no later than July 17" ahead of the 2015 America's Cup World Series. Dubai-based airline Emirates was reported to be the favoured sponsor, with the tower to be renamed as the Emirates Spinnaker Tower. On 5 June 2015, the city council confirmed that Emirates had been secured as the sponsor. Councillor Luke Stubbs said: "It's clearly a very good deal for the city and shows the benefit that Portsmouth is deriving from the America’s Cup... This also associates Portsmouth
Spinnaker one season Andrew Buckland observed that the 18s had sailed all season without pulling the spinnaker pole back from the forestay and that all the systems could be simplified by eliminating the pole and setting the spinnaker from a fixed (but often retractable) bowsprit. The concept quickly evolved to a sail with a loose luff much more like a conventional spinnaker than the old jib style asymmetric sails. Julian Bethwaite was the first to rig and sail a boat with one the next season, followed shortly by Andrew Buckland. The first modern offshore sailboats to incorporate a retractable bow sprit