The Client

The 1851 Trust are the official charity of the British America’s Cup challenger, INEOS TEAM UK. Through their programmes, they take science beyond the textbook to get young people active and inspired by sport.

The America’s Cup is the Formula 1 of sailing and the oldest sporting trophy in the world. INEOS TEAM UK is backed by INEOS Founder & Chairman, Jim Ratcliffe and Skippered by the world’s most successful Olympic sailor Sir Ben Ainslie (who is also the Trust’s Patron).

The Trust’s flagship programmes STEM Crew and INEOS Rebels Crew utilise the inspiration of the America’s Cup, showcasing where sport and science collide; across thousands of UK classrooms and lakes/reservoirs in some of Britain’s biggest cities.

The Challenge

With a new America’s Cup campaign underway, the Trust’s digital education platform STEM Crew was in need of an overhaul. With funding also secured to develop a brand-new nationwide sailing initiative, Rebels Crew was born. With two large projects needing completion, the 1851 Trust approached Brandwave to help capitalise on the opportunity for new websites.

  • STEM Crew – an immersive, online learning experience with free teaching resources covering real world, relatable science, technology, engineering and maths topics for 11-16 year olds.
  • Rebels Crew  – facilitated sailing experiences for state school pupils around the UK cities specifically from disadvantaged backgrounds. The programme provides funded sailing sessions at 12 flagship centres throughout the UK.

The new interactive digital platforms needed to accommodate growth and more importantly, support the 1851 Trust team with their ambitions to set the industry benchmark for user experience and accessibility to online education information and resources.

The Result

For the STEM Crew website, the Brandwave design team developed a clean and dynamic looking front-end in-line with STEM Crew’s visual identity.

In addition to improved functionality across the site, a flexible WordPress based search solution now ensures visitors can easily find an increasing number of available teaching resources, further improving the user experience.

The site also features impressive user insight tracking that can be used by The 1851 Trust to deliver a more relevant, tailored and stronger overall programme for teachers.

For Rebels Crew, we developed a second site using a WordPress multisite network to allow users to easily geolocate their nearest “Rebels Crew” sailing centre and view on plotted Google Maps. The site also allows sailing centres access to a private portal where they can download assets and upload reports in order to keep the Trust up-to-date with user-uptake.

The multisite allows both sites to easily be managed and developed with the ability to add further functionality to both simultaneously.

The 1851 Trust received the First Sea Lord’s Award for ‘Best Use of Digital Media’ for their STEM Crew programme at the Maritime Foundation’s Media Award 2019

“Working with the Brandwave Team has been an absolute pleasure. Their knowledge has been invaluable in developing our high end teaching platform STEM Crew and functional Rebels Crew website. Nothing has been too much for the Team, their professional yet approachable manner has ensured we have met all deadlines. We are really looking forward to further developing the functionality of the STEM Crew site, with a Team who are always willing to go the extra mile.”

Gabriella Hewitt

MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER – 1851 TRUST