Sailing's Olympic hero

Britain's Olympic dreams are riding on Ben Ainslie

On the eve of the 33rd America's Cup, one of sailing's most prestigious events, WideWorld caught up with Ben Ainslie, who hopes to bring the cup back to Britain next year as he skippers Team Origin. Not only that, Ainslie is Britain's great Olympic hope for 2012.

As Britain’s most successful Olympic sailor ever and an unprecedented three-time winner of the World Sailor of the Year award, 32-year-old Ben Ainslie CBE could be forgiven for resting on his laurels. But that's not in his nature.

Ainslie recently captained Britain’s Team Origin to three consecutive victories in the Louis Vuitton Trophy in Nice, marking the start of the most demanding period of his career as an elite sailor. Over the next three years he is scheduled to represent Britain in the two most high profile events in sailing: the Olympics and the America’s Cup.

Winning a fourth successive Olympic gold medal in 2012 and skippering Team Origin, Britain's America's Cup Challenger, to glory in 2011 would elevate his reputation from being one the greatest sailors of his generation to one of the greatest of all time.

Ainslie’s journey to the summit of sailing began in a childhood environment that could not have been more conducive to the sport. Indeed, he admits that his introduction to sailing was somewhat inevitable given the supporting factors at work. “There were two things really,” he explains. “My parents – my dad especially – were keen sailors so they helped get me into the sport, plus growing up in Cornwall where sailing was really accessible.” Ainslie’s father, Roderick, was more than just a keen sailor, he captained a boat in the first Whitbread Round the World Race in 1973 and passed on his sailing knowledge to his son. When he retired, the Ainslie family moved from Cheshire to Restronguet near Falmouth. Their new home was a former fisherman’s cottage perched on a cliff above Restronguet Creek and this stretch of water proved the perfect training ground for Ainslie to practice the skills that would make him an Olympic champion. At the age of 10, Ainslie was exploring the inlets of this haven on his own in an old wooden dinghy his parents had given him for Christmas. A lasting love affair with sailing had begun.

The turning point

Ainslie claims that at this stage sailing was simply a passion and thoughts of professional glory were far from his mind. “It was just a sport which I really loved. And I was part of Restronguet Sailing Club, which was a great club for me and we had some good racing. I didn’t set out to be an Olympic champion at the age of 10.” The turning point – when Ainslie believed sailing could become more than just a pastime – occurred six years later. “At 16,” he says, “I went to New Zealand and competed in the Laser Radial world championships and managed to win. That gave me the belief and confidence that I could make a career out of sailing and be a serious professional.”

Of course, trying to be a top international sportsman at such a young age meant Ainslie had to miss out on aspects of life that other teenagers take for granted. “I had to make sacrifices,” he says. “My education was one of them. I managed to get back to complete my A-levels but I didn’t have the time to go through a university degree course, which in some ways was something I regretted. And also socially there were some things I had to miss out on. But I was happy with my decision then and I’m still happy that I made that call.” The sacrifices proved worth it when Ainslie won a silver medal aged 19 at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.  Four years later, in Sydney,  Ainslie went one better and captured the gold.

Ainslie’s Olympic success had come in the Laser class and an era of dominance in this sailing category beckoned. But following Sydney, he turned his sights towards the America’s Cup. The two are polar opposites; the Laser is a single-handed dinghy with an overall length of about four metres, raced close to shore. The America’s Cup, on the other hand, is a team competition involving a series of off-shore races between yachts with approximately 23 metres.

“It was always a childhood dream to be successful in the America’s Cup,” Ainslie says. “So when I had my first opportunity back in 2001 to take part in it with One World Challenge, it was a chance for me to get some experience and to start learning because it is a very complex game.

“It is much more about team work with any big boat sailing, especially offshore sailing,” he says. “You’ve got 16 guys on the boat so it’s about having a good plan, getting good communication and then dealing with the conditions.”

Open water

Offshore races in large boats also often last much longer than Olympic races. Last year, Ainslie was the helmsman in Alpha Romeo’s success in the LA-Hawaii Transpacific Yacht Race. The winning time of five days 14 hours beat the previous record by over a day. Ainslie acknowledges that these longer races can be physically and mentally demanding. “It can be very hard,” he says, “especially if conditions are rough. You have to deal with sleep deprivation... and you have to understand the boat so that you can get it to sail as near as possible to its optimum speed.”

Then of course, there is also the danger that the weather presents in racing in open water. As Ainslie explains, even in bad conditions sailors are expected to brave the seas. “On very, very rare occasions the beginning of a race might be delayed until the weather has passed, but normally once a race has started the conditions would have to be very extreme for the race to be stopped.” Ainslie recalls dealing with 40-knot winds in the 2005 Sydney to Hobart race as the toughest conditions he has had to contend with. In these circumstances, the aim of the crew shifts, he says. “In rough conditions boat preservation becomes a priority.”

A wind-less day, as Ainslie experienced in the Beijing Olympics, presents a different challenge. “It is much more about the mind game,” he explains. “Finding the wind in those conditions becomes more like a game of chess. I guess that’s one of the attractions of the sport in that there are many different challenges that the conditions can bring.”

The switch to offshore racing in 2001 marked the start of a cycle for Ainslie in which he would gain America’s Cup experience in between competing in the Olympics. He says it takes months of training and preparation to get to a competitive level in both disciplines and so he can only concentrate on one event at a time. “It tends to be that you’re focusing on one aspect for a period of time. So between 2004 all the way through to the summer of 2007 I was primarily focused on the America’s Cup and sailing with Team New Zealand, and then between summer 2007 and summer 2008 I was focused on the Olympics. I’m going through a period again now where I’m focused on Team Origin, the British America’s Cup team. But obviously the London Olympics in 2012 has a huge appeal and at some stage I’ll need to get my focus back in that direction.”

2012

Ainslie has found focusing on sailing more of a challenge recently. The profile of the America’s Cup is such that it examines more than just sailing skills. It requires a high level of yacht design, fundraising and management ability and for a skipper it means spending more time on shore as Ainslie has found out. “Certainly this year has been a difficult year in terms of having other commitments outside of sailing and that’s something I’ve just had to do,” he says. “I’m very much looking forward to next year and spending much more time racing.”

Spending time on dry land has at least given Ainslie the chance to experience public excitement in the London Olympics and his opportunity to challenge for a fourth consecutive gold medal. “The interest is huge. Every person I talk to is asking about it and that’s great… From the point of view of a British national, the opportunity to race in your own country’s water is the opportunity of a lifetime, so I’m very excited about it.” Interest in Ainslie’s exploits is indicative of the greater profile sailing now has compared to when he first started in the sport. “It has come a huge way in the last 10 or 15 years thanks to the success of offshore sailors like Ellen MacArthur and the success we’ve had in the past three Olympic cycles,” he says. “I think all that has helped to increase the profile of the sport immeasurably in the UK and that’s what we need to encourage more members to get into it.”

It was a trip to his local sailing club that got Ainslie into racing and led to a remarkable list of achievements. “It’s certainly going to be a very busy period and there will be a lot of hard work to make it all happen,” Ainslie says. “I’ve still got one or two things to improve on but hopefully I can go out and do a good job personally and also do a good job as part of a team.”

You wouldn’t bet against him.

Ben Ainslie’s autobiography Close to the Wind (Yellow Jersey, £18.99) is available from Amazon