Sir Ben Ainslie exclusive
America’s Cup loss hurt – but we will be back
It was an emotional night on Thursday. All the team had a few drinks at the base after the defeat by Emirates Team New Zealand. We got everyone together in the boatshed for a final team talk, and I told them how proud I was of them and what we had achieved over the last few years. I was not just saying it. I am not for one minute standing here and claiming that we did not make mistakes in this campaign. Quite the contrary, in fact. There are countless things we would have done differently.
But nor do I think we should lose sight of what we have done in terms of setting the team up from scratch; building a base in Portsmouth, setting up our charity, the 1851 Trust, pulling a team together from all over the place, – different sports, different teams, different industries.
I still cannot quite believe that 3½ years ago a few of us were sitting around a table with a blank piece of paper. We are in much better shape now going forward.
I am aware that there will be those saying that we failed out here in Bermuda. And we did in terms of our overall goal. It was always our target to win the America’s Cup at our first attempt. I am not going to hide from that now and say this campaign was simply a learning experience.
We are bitterly disappointed that we were unable to progress further at this Cup, and we need to analyse where we went wrong.
We are getting everyone together today to start our debriefing process, all the different departments in turn, and that debrief will continue once we get back to Portsmouth.
Some of us will stay out here in Bermuda until the end of the Cup. A core team of designers and sailors, trying to identify key performance differentiators that we have seen from the other teams.
As I say, there are so many things we have learnt, but ultimately it boils down to the fact that our boat was not fast enough.
For me, the biggest learning area from this Cup is that you have to get your design strategy right from the start. Whereas in the past you might say, ‘Oh, we can do this with our keel design’ or ‘We can tweak this’ and go for a different shaped mainsail, now more than ever the whole package has to be thought out and put together right from the outset.
I think we were forced into rushing key strategic decisions because we were a new team. We were six months behind by the time we actually got the funding and the team together, and we knew we were behind. In hindsight, we did not take enough time to really nail down that design strategy.
There will be personnel changes throughout the team. That is the nature of development. But everyone should feel proud of what the team have achieved. They will always be a part of Land Rover BAR.
On the sailing side, we need to become better at working with the design team to give feedback. I personally learnt a huge amount in this campaign in terms of working with the designers and being intimately involved with the design process. Never has the America’s Cup been such a technical challenge for the sailors. We can all become better at that.
I am aware that some people felt we made a mistake by not coming out to Bermuda earlier in the campaign. I do not buy that. Look at Team New Zealand. They were the last team to turn up out here. They just focused solely on technology and have really done an incredible job so far.
Being in the UK also really helped us to set up the identity of the team, which is one of the great positives of where we find ourselves now, with Land Rover and 11th Hour Racing having renewed for the next Cup, alongside our partners that had already signed up for the next cycle. This puts us in a really strong strategic position.
The last three years have been massively tough on everyone, myself included. That was partly out of necessity – trying to set the team up and get it up and running – but there are also plenty of things I learnt about running a team. Working with Martin Whitmarsh, our chief executive, and the rest of our management team has been a privilege.
One thing I do know is that I want to focus on driving the boat at the 36th America’s Cup. There is no question of me stepping back from sailing to concentrate solely on running the team. You are a long time retired once you decide to hang up your sailing boots. And for myself and for the whole team this is unfinished business.
Ultimately, this campaign has been an incredibly steep learning curve. I do not want to make excuses; when all is said and done we did not achieve our goal. But I am 100 per cent convinced that we will be better prepared next time and stronger for this experience. We will start from a totally different place.
One last thing: the support we have received from back home over the past month has been utterly incredible. We will use that energy to drive us forward. We will be back.