Ainslie’s drive for the America’s Cup
Sir Ben Ainslie will be 44 by the time next year’s America’s Cup reaches its climax in March. Not old by the standards of yesteryear, but this is the 21st century. The boats fly above the water at up to 50 knots, crewed by elite athletes decked out in armour and crash helmets.
This is a very modern, very muscular, very explosive sport.
Ask Ainslie whether he is considering hanging up his sailing boots next spring, though, and he is clear. “I would like to do another [four-year] cycle,” replies the four-times Olympic dinghy champion. “Going on past that, I think, would be a push. But I still have the motivation and the drive.” Ainslie watched The Last
Dance, ESPN’s documentary about Michael Jordan. He recognises certain character traits: the intensity, the fierce drive to succeed, even the way Jordan confects rivalries and slights to motivate himself and his team.
“The Last Dance was fascinating,” he said. “I guess it was just the intensity of the guy, right? He was pretty dominant with his team-mates.
“I think it’s that brutal honesty you have to have if you want to succeed. You have to be able to call people out if they’re not living up to expectations. Yeah, I loved it. And some of the rivalries with the other teams. He would pick on a few people and that would be his motivation to excel.”
Ainslie was not averse to doing that in his Olympic career, whether it was sailing the Brazilian great Robert Scheidt down the fleet at Sydney 2000 or making it his mission to overhaul Danish rival Jonas Hogh-Christensen in 2012. (“They’ve made a big mistake,” Ainslie famously growled after being called for an on-water penalty midway through that regatta. “They’ve made me angry and you don’t want to make me angry.”)
Interestingly, Ainslie found himself studying Bulls coach Phil Jackson almost more than Jordan while watching the documentary; noting Jackson’s ability to work alongside the Bulls’ unpopular GM, Jerry Krause, despite their mutual antipathy, or accommodate mavericks such as Dennis Rodman.
“I mean, what amazing management,” he says. Ainslie is a manager himself now, of course. No longer an Olympic sailor out for personal glory, he is a team principal, in charge of more than 100 staff, as well as helmsman and skipper on Britannia. It is a full-on role.
Watching Ainslie and his crew put the America’s Cup yacht Britannia through its paces on the Solent river near his home base of Portsmouth in the UK, an hour or two after we finish our interview, is an education in modern America’s Cup racing.
It is like the set of a James Bond film; the level of technology, the sheer number of people and support crew.
The speeds involved are staggering. On the day we go out there is not enough wind to get Britannia up on its foils consistently
It is like the set of a James Bond film; the level of technology, the sheer number of people and support crew
so Ineos use a motorboat to help generate the initial speed.
Once up, Britannia is easily reaching 28 knots of boat speed off seven or eight knots of breeze, aided by a “blister” on the underside of the hull.
Chase boats with engineers, documentary filmmakers, drone pilots and replacement sailors ready to swap in follow Britannia’s every move, while somewhere lurking nearby are “spy boats” of rival teams.
It is all part of the game. Ineos are still building the actual race boat they will use next spring, which Ainslie admits will be “very different” from this first iteration.
The team will travel out in dribs and drabs over the next few months, including Ainslie with his wife Georgie and daughter Bellatrix.
They will all have to isolate for two weeks on arrival. Covid19 has had a huge effect. But Ainslie does not think his team — who are bankrolled by Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s billions so have not had to worry about funding or sponsorship — have done too badly out of it.
“It’s been a really productive period” he said, then grins.
The old competitive fires are burning as brightly as ever. “I think any top sportsman would tell you that the moment you think you’re not competitive ... you don’t want to be that person who is slowly tapering off,” he says. “If I do decide to stop, that will be it. That time comes. You just have to try to call it right.”