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 After a text book start to the annual "Round the Island Race" off
Cowes, Ainslie and his crew aboard the sleek green racing yacht
"Rebel" are locked in a tacking duel with another 45-footer called
"Toe in the Water".
It is 6.45 a.m. and under clear blue skies what promises to be a
slow 50 nautical mile race has only just begun.
But with precious little wind, areas of "pressure" evident as darker
patches on the calm waters, every turn of the boat – known as a
"tack" – slows it down against a fast-running tide.
"We're coming after you," Ainslie says, half jokingly, half
menacingly, after one of several close encounters with the maroon
yacht. Its skipper has clearly decided to engage Britain's America's
Cup hopeful by matching him tack for tack.
The 37-year-old Briton, who warned fellow competitors "you don't
want to make me angry" at the 2012 Olympics before going on to
clinch gold in the single-handed Finn dinghy, gradually draws away
as his boat makes its way up the Solent.
With an Olympic medal tally of four golds and one silver in
consecutive games, Ainslie's success continued last year when he
helped bring Oracle Team USA back from the brink of defeat in the
America's Cup in San Francisco.
That remarkable victory helped him to launch his own campaign this
month, signing up private sponsors, a design team and a crew
including three-times America's Cup winner Jono Macbeth, another New
Zealand veteran Andy McLean and Britons David Carr, Matt Cornwell
and Nick Hutton.
With this team, Ainslie is aiming to bring the "Auld Mug" to Britain
for the first time since the trophy was won in an historic race
around the Isle of Wight by the U.S. schooner "America" in August
1851.
[VIDEO LINK:
http://uk.reuters.com/video/2014/06/23/reuters-goes-sailing-with-ben-ainslie?videoId=316510398&videoChannel=1]
PLAIN SAILING
The 2014 circumnavigation was meant to be an easy outing for Ainslie
and his newly formed America's Cup challenge team. But a last minute
rigging glitch foiled hopes of a record attempt on board the
100-foot state-of-the art yacht "Leopard".
So with only 45 minutes of practice on board "Rebel", this is the
first time Ainslie, Macbeth, McLean, Cornwell and Carr have raced
together as a team.
By Ainslie's standards, it is a recreational sail. A year ago, the
stakes were much higher as he went for a record.
On a gusty day, Ainslie and his Ben Ainslie Racing (BAR) team broke
the multi hull record for the race, rounding the island in just
three hours and 44 minutes on a smaller version of the AC72
catamaran on which he later won the America’s Cup.
The mood was very different then. The day before he and friends
including fellow Olympian Iain Percy had carried the coffin of their
friend Andrew "Bart" Simpson, who died in San Francisco Bay when the
catamaran he was training on capsized.
Ainslie recalls how he left Simpson’s wake at midnight and was
picked up by a launch from Southampton on the mainland at 2 a.m to
take him to Cowes to be ready for the start of the race.
He says that Simpson’s death will mean more rigorous structural
tests for the new generation of catamarans in the next America’s
Cup, where he expects seven or eight teams to compete for the right
to challenge Oracle Team USA.
Getting his own team ready is a huge project, involving the
construction of a base in Portsmouth and the building of practice
boats, which the team will hone its skills on in the waters through
which he is now sailing.
Ainslie's crew say he is working night and day to get the money and
backing he needs to make the bid a success.
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Their skipper says they have raised around 40 percent of the 80
million pounds ($136.06 million) he reckons is needed to
successfully become the challenger to Oracle Team USA in 2017,
including the cost of building a new high-tech 62-foot catamaran.
"I would love to bring the America's Cup back here. The America's
Cup is about designing and building the fastest boat and then going
out and sailing it really well," Ainslie told Reuters on board
"Rebel" during Saturday's race.
"We've been having some really good early discussions with a number
of different brands and businesses. So I'm pretty confident we will
be there and we will have the funding that we need," he added.
TEAM BUILDING
Once past the jagged chalk rocks known as the Needles which protrude
from the western end of the Isle of Wight, "Rebel" is clearly ahead
of "Toe in the Water" and builds a healthy lead around the southern
side of the island.
Ainslie is more relaxed, but still watching for every wind shift and
giving instructions on tactics or trimming the boat. He never raises
his voice, his directions more like wishes such as "I'm thinking
about..." or "You might want to...".
There is genuine affection for Ainslie among the newly-formed team,
with Carr referring to him as "Guv" throughout the race as he seeks
advice or reassurance on tactics.
And they rib their skipper when he ventures to the front of the
boat, saying he's about to produce a couple of distress flares and
hold them aloft, in a recreation of the posture he adopted when he
celebrated his last Olympic gold medal.
Ainslie responds with words of encouragement when the crew pull off
a tricky "gybe" maneuver really well.
But any talk of line honours in the Round the Island Race is dashed
when "Rebel" and the other leading boats pile up in a wind hole with
just four miles still to go. "Toe in the Water" is able to spot the
trouble ahead and manages to keep sailing.
Then the wind drops completely and Ainslie has no option but to
"kedge", dropping the anchor to stop the boat being swept backwards
by the tide. Of the 1584 boats which entered the race, more than
half retired, with only 715 finishing.
"Who says sailing isn't fun?" Ainslie says, with a wry smile,
breaking the despondent silence among the crew.
When the breeze does finally pick up again, Ainslie tries to find
more wind on the opposite side of the channel.
But his gamble doesn't pay off and by the time "Rebel" crosses the
finish line after 10 hours and 18 minutes, "Toe in the Water" has
comfortably beaten the America's Cup winner.
"We had a great race... we got around in one piece, that's the main
thing," says Ainslie with a smile as he looks forward to helming a
fast catamaran in the Extreme Sailing Series in St. Petersburg later
this week.
($1 = 0.5880 British Pounds)
(Editing by Ossian Shine)
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