When it came to assembling a team capable of winning the world's most challenging and prestigious sailing event, the one thing Sir Ben Ainslie didn't have to worry about was organising an old-fashioned naval press gang. Having won medals at five consecutive Games, including four golds, the most successful Olympic sailor in history may have a fearsome nautical reputation for being the "most competitive man on the planet" (according to one of his rivals), but he didn't need to strong-arm anyone to follow his star. The chance to be a part of the first British crew to win the America's Cup is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Forget 1966 and all that... if Britain were to claim the "Auld Mug" this year, it would officially end 166 years of hurt, and who wouldn't want to be a part of bringing the cup home?
"As a youngster, I had two ambitions in life," Ainslie says, sitting in his immaculate office in the sleek, carbon-neutral HQ his team occupy on the Camber in Portsmouth. "One was the Olympics and the other was winning the America's Cup for Britain. So this is exactly where I want to be."
He is not alone. Having formed Ben Ainslie Racing (BAR) in 2014, the 39-year-old set about raising £100 million in funding, identifying the senior executives to help him run the show and recruiting the very best crew for the task of sailing the most advanced yacht to ever hit the water. And he achieved all that, seemingly without breaking a sweat or losing the smile from his face. He did it, he says, by adhering to two principles: "The first one was that everyone who came on board, from individuals to partners and sponsors, had to be at the top of their field - we wanted the right people in the right roles and they had to deliver from day one." And the second? "We had and still have a very strict 'no dickheads' policy."
Ainslie laughs, but it is a strategy that has served him well so far. From securing the financial backing of British businessman and sailing patriarch/enthusiast Sir Keith Mills and gaining the royal patronage of the Duchess of Cambridge, through to convincing former McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh to become CEO and establishing a vital partnership with title sponsor Land Rover, off the water Ainslie's maritime master plan has so far run perfectly. In turn, that translated into serious success in last year's Louis Vuitton America's Cup World Series, a race programme that helped decide which of the entrants eventually challenges for the top trophy. Ainslie's team are now in Bermuda as arguably the most serious challenger to current Cup holders, Oracle Team USA.
And now is when the racing gets interesting, because the Americans hold all the aces. In Aussie skipper James "The Pitbull" Spithill they have a fierce competitor who remains the youngest helmsman ever to win the America's Cup (at the age of 30, back in 2010). In team owner Larry Ellison, they have a businessman/philanthropist that Forbes conservatively estimates is worth $49.9 billion (making him the seventh richest man in the world). And as the team defending the trophy, the rules dictate that Team Oracle set the terms of engagement. In other words, the scale of the challenge Ainslie and his outfit face could not be any harder if Team Oracle recruited a leviathan as its sixth man.
"The Americans are the favourites, no question," says Ainslie. "They are the holders, so they're already in the final. At the moment, they still negotiate the rules and the protocol for the final and they obviously play to their strengths, so they are going to be extremely tough to beat. That is why the Cup is so hard to win." There is a pause as the magnitude of the challenge ahead hangs in the air. "But do I think it is winnable? Absolutely. If it wasn't, we wouldn't be here doing this and putting all this effort in, believe me. We are in this to win it, end of story."
To understand why winning the America's Cup is so important to the British, you have to go back to 1851 when Britannia still ruled the waves as the world's undisputed maritime force. So confident were we in our naval superiority back then, that when Queen Victoria and Prince Albert hosted the Great Exhibition they invited the New York Yacht Club to send over a vessel that would represent American shipbuilding prowess and possibly compete with the might of the British fleet.
It was a joke among high society that our former colonial cousins would be incapable of building anything on a par with British naval architects, but when the 101ft schooner America duly sailed across the Atlantic it received plenty of admiring and rather nervous glances. The loud-mouthed Yankee sailors also brought plenty in the way of braggadocio and bold tales of the ship's speedy dexterity, with Commodore John Cox Stevens (part of the syndicate that owned the boat) even going so far as to place advertisements in the papers challenging all comers with the offer of a £10,000 wager for the winner.
Unsurprisingly, there were no takers, but in order to meet the challenge the Royal Yacht Squadron made their annual race around the Isle Of Wight an open event, with 15 ships invited to compete in a 53-mile race for what was then called the £100 Cup. With the monarch looking on from the Royal Yacht, rather than putting the upstart in her place, America eclipsed the almost entirely British fleet to race home a full eight minutes clear of her nearest rival. As the American schooner sailed proudly over the finish line, Queen Victoria famously turned to an aide and asked, "Who is second?" The response was embarrassingly short. "Your Majesty, there is no second."
And for 132 years, the United States continued to prove there was no such thing as second. Establishing the longest winning streak in sporting history, they defended the newly named America's Cup 24 times. British sailors challenged and failed time and time again. Or, in the case of Sir Thomas Lipton, a five-time failure. Twenty times the British came to set the record straight and 20 times they came up short. Eventually, in 1983, an Australian team claimed the Cup and broke the American stranglehold, but if the British thought they were about to get their hands on the trophy they were sadly mistaken. The US won it back, then New Zealand took it home. Even the Swiss boat Alinghi was able to sail to victory, twice. The Swiss!
No wonder Ainslie is so committed to leading a British team to success. But it is not just personal ambition that is driving him on. "If we can tick off the America's Cup it will be one of the biggest achievements in sport for this country and finally restore us as the greatest maritime nation," he says.
The America's Cup boat in which Ainslie and his team race has been called the "most technologically advanced yacht ever built" and a "fighter jet on water". Whitmarsh, however, describes these hydrofoiling catamarans as the "Formula One cars of sailing". And he would know. Prior to joining Land Rover BAR, he spent ten years at British Aerospace, then another 25 at McLaren, helping steer them to eight world championships.
"After leaving McLaren, I needed a new challenge and this has everything," Whitmarsh says. "There's technology, competitive racing, passionate people and there is a real chance to make history. Within minutes of talking to Ben I knew I wanted to do it."
With Whitmarsh involved, technical advances came quickly. F1 engineers Adrian Newey (from Red Bull Racing) and Richard Hopkirk (another former McLaren man), plus chief technology officer Andy Claughton, were vital in developing a boat capable of competing with the likes of Team Oracle, Emirates Team New Zealand and Sweden's Artemis Racing. Whitmarsh admits that for a while BAR were playing catch-up with their rivals, but thanks to the backing of title sponsors Land Rover, the influence of the British marque's research department and an aggressive self-imposed development programme, the team are at a point where their boat is on a par with the opposition.
"This has become such a technical sport that really our mission is to give Ben and his team the best tools possible, to make him the fastest boat we can," says Whitmarsh. "But it wouldn't make any difference at all if we didn't have the best sailors and in Ben and his team I believe we do. Ben is pretty unusual in that although he has that absolute desire to win, he exhibits it in an understated way. He has a humility about him that makes him such an attractive personality. On the water, though, from what I've heard, he can be a little different..."
Ainslie smiles at Whitmarsh's description. "I think I used to be a lot more aggressive when it came to racing. Nowadays I am more comfortable on land and a little less abrasive on the water. I like to think I have matured with age."
However, despite turning 40 this year, a marriage to Sky Sports presenter Georgie Thompson in 2015 and becoming a father (to a daughter, Bellatrix) this year, no one - least of all his rivals or his crewmates - should think for a second that Ainslie is going soft. "I'm absolutely 100 per cent up for the battle ahead," he says with a steely resolve. "I am as motivated and excited by this challenge as anything I have ever done in sailing. These boats are amazing... They give you a real buzz when you race them at full throttle. When you start to foil at 40 to 50 miles an hour, there is nothing quite like it. Plus, as far as a midlife crisis goes, this beats buying a sports car."
The only way to really understand what Ainslie means is to sail with him, and I got my chance on the New York leg of the Louis Vuitton Cup last year. It would be tempting at this stage to point out that Ainslie must have decided to relax his "no dickheads" rule, but as I was warming the seat up for actors Alfie Allen (Game Of Thrones) and Liam Hemsworth (The Hunger Games) maybe I was being a little hard on myself.
To accommodate the race, organisers had to set the course between Freedom Tower in Lower Manhattan and the Goldman Sachs building in Jersey City. In other words, what little wind was blowing across the Hudson was frustratingly blocked by a collection of skyscrapers. As Ainslie himself described it, this is "the last place on earth you would want a race course". Throw in grey skies and rain, and you have near perfect non-sailing conditions.
Onboard, however, was an entirely different experience. Having clumsily navigated across the netting and through the various ropes and pulleys that link the 71ft mast, jib sail and rudder to the winches, guide lines and daggerboards, as "sixth man" I was deposited out of harm's way at the stern, on what can only be described as a deeply uncomfortable hammock. Then Ainslie and his four-man team went to work.
Wringing every ounce of speed from the inconsistent wind, the grinder (David "Freddie" Carr), trimmer (Nick Hutton), wing trimmer (Paul Campbell-James), bowman (Ed Powys) and skipper (Ainslie) were a blur of energy, movement and balletic balance. With just a netted deck stretched between the twin carbon fibre hulls, the crew parkoured from one side to the other like trapeze artists performing limbo routines. It was fascinating to watch, but felt like a lot of hard work for not a lot of speed. And then Ainslie found wind. In a heartbeat, the crew responded and within seconds the 1,300kg boat hit close to 30 knots and one of the L-shaped foils deployed, raising the hulls into the air so that it felt like she was flying. It lasted only for ten seconds, but it was an exhilarating and intoxicating feeling.
In terms of points, though, New York would mark the low-point for Land Rover BAR. A succession of subsequent wins and high placings in Chicago, Portsmouth and Toulon has taken Ainslie and team to the top of the challenger leader board. A result that could be vital once the America's Cup moves on to Bermuda in the new year. Over the next six months teams will fall by the wayside until the final race for the Auld Mug takes place in June, when hopefully Britain can once again establish itself as the ruler of the waves. Ainslie, as you'd expect, has no doubts that this time is his time...
"Winning the America's Cup is the last great sporting hurdle we have to cross," he says. "Having not won it has become part of our British maritime history and my team is aiming to right that wrong. Had I been involved in that first race in 1851, I would have been furious. The British were absolutely trounced. But believe me, in 2017 we will make amends." For more information, visit the Land Rover BAR Team.
