Winging it

Ben Ainslie looks ahead at the Finn Europeans this week in Kalmar, Sweden

After a cancelled practise race today, so the Finn Europeans begin tomorrow in earnest. This, like the Star and Tornado Europeans, is also taking place in Sweden, this time in Kalmar in the southeast of the country.

Athens Gold medallist in the class, Ben Ainslie is taking time off from representing Emirates Team New Zealand on the international match race circuit to compete and frankly it would be an unwise person to bet against his prospects in Sweden. At the Holland Regatta, the former SPA Regatta at the end of May, Ainslie beat Greece's Emilios Papathanasiou by 14 points to 35, his worst place being a fifth. All the evidence is that Ainslie has lost none of his potential.

Ainslie himself is not so convinced. "I haven’t sailed since SPA regatta, so I am going just to keep my hand in. I don’t have any expectations. I would love to try and win." Due to Skandia Cowes Week commitments, Ainslie was only able to get to Kalmar at the last moment, although he admits this was also the case at the Holland Regatta. "With the Finn fitness is an issue," he says. "My weight is down to 89-90kg and it should be 95. So there are plenty of things to work on. As long as I am realistic and know the reasons, it is fine."

Ainslie says he is finding his present situation odd. "I’ve never really had a season in an Olympic class where I haven’t been doing it properly. This year I have been winging it and I’m not sure if I am happy about that, but that is the situation. It is probably better in the future to do these events regardless of the result just because it will be less time away from the boat when I finally get back into it."

Among the competition he will be up against Ainslie cites Emilios Papathanasiou who has been training hard since Athens, as well as another Finn veteran Spain's Rafael Trujillo and Croatia's Marin Misura. With Andrew Simpson no longer campaigning the Finn, Ainslie reckons there could be stiff competition from the British Finn squad in the form of Ed Wright in particular. "I haven’t seen that much of him this year, but he has been getting some good results and he is a good sailor," said Ainslie. "He is a talented sailor and someone to watch out for."

As usual in the year following an Olympiad the game of music chairs between classes has been taking place and has seen the arrival in the Finn class of Norway's Peer Moberg, the Laser bronze medallist in 1996 as well as another former Laser sailor who has since moved on to the 49er and then into the America's Cup in New Zealand's Dan Slater.

The Finn Europeans will run from tomorrow until 14 August.

For Ainslie after the Europeans he is straight into the new event in the Swedish Match Tour in St Moritz where, unusually, they race three man twin trapeze boats. This follows Ainslie's impressive second place at Match Race Portugal in July. "Our starts are a lot better now and we can actually have a conversation about what we want to do tactically rather than just getting off the start line without two penalties." After this he is racing on Eamon Conneely's TP52 Patches when he finally joins up with the Breitling MedCup circuit for the last event of the circuit this year in Sardinia.

The line-up:

Crew	Sail no	Nat
Anthony Nossiter (1973)	AUS-221	Australia
Josh Beaver (1980)	AUS-228	Australia
Raudaschl Florian (1978)	AUT 271	Austria
Fabio Bodra	BRA-11	Brasil
Ivan Kljakovic Gaspic (1984)	CRO-524	Croatia
Marin Misura (1982)	CRO-25	Croatia
Emil Tomasevic (1968)	CRO-16	Croatia
Michael Maier	CZE-1	Czech Republic
Michal Hrubý	CZE-9	Czech Republic
Rudolf Lidaøík	CZE-3	Czech Republic
Kenneth Bøggild (1968)	DEN-231	Denmark
Thomas Laursen (1970)	DEN-9	Denmark
Jesper Petersen	DEN-218	Denmark
Per Cederberg	DEN-22	Denmark
Jonas Høgh-Christensen (1981)	DEN-2	Denmark
Søren Holm (1971)	DEN-7	Denmark
Tapio Nirkko (1984)	FIN-216	Finland
BRUNO ismael	FRA-972	France
Pierre-Alexis Ponsot (1975)	FRA-9	France
CHAPRON Frédéric	FRA-17	France
Alain Derenoncourt	FRA-813	FRANCE
Ben Ainslie	GBR-3	GBR
Edward Greig (1983)	GBR-625	GBR
Matt Howard (1980)	GBR-550	GBR
Chris Brittle	GBR-541	GBR
Edward Wright (1977)	GBR-111	GBR
Richard Hart	GBR-631	GBR
Andreas Bollongino	GER-19	Germany
Matthias Bohn	GER-174	Germany
MUNCK, Sebastian (1976)	GER-108	Germany
Michael Fellmann	GER-79	Germany
Michael Eller	GER-266	Germany
Detlev Guminski	GER-92	Germany
David Guminski	GER-12	Germany
Sebastian Petrov (1986)	GER-137	Germany
André Budzien	GER-711	Germany
Günter O. Hoffmann	GER-150	Germany
Frank Westendorf	GER-37	Germany
BARTHEL Uwe	GER-262	Germany
PAPATHANASIOU EMILIOS	GRE-7	Greece
DAVOURLIS PANAGIOTIS	GRE-71	Greece
DRAGUTSIS ALEXANDROS	GRE-8	Greece
PAPASTEFANOU PAHOMIOS	GRE-11	Greece
Gaszton Pál	HUN-6	Hungary
Márton Beliczay	HUN-8	Hungary
Peter Lovas	HUN-11	Hungary
Aaron O'Grady	IRL-10	Ireland
Timothy Goodbody (1983)	IRL-5	Ireland
Francesco Faggiani	ITA-793	Italy
Giampaolo Ciarnelli	ITA-723	Italy
Cisbani Paolo	ITA-892	Italy
Riccardo Cordovani	ITA-101	Italy
andrea bianchi	ITA-27	Italy
armando battaglia	ITA-25	Italy
Sander E. Willems	NED-80	Netherlands
Stefan de Vries	NED-6	Netherlands
Wietze Zetzema	NED-64	Netherlands
Johan van Straalen	NED-18	Netherlands
Henk de Jager	Ned 11	Netherlands
Karel van Hellemond	NED-41	Netherlands
Dan Slater	NZL-14	New Zealand
Peer Moberg	NOR-1	Norway
Waclaw Szukiel (1975)	POL-12	Poland
Rafal Szukiel (1976)	POL-7	Poland
Norbert Wilandt	POL-17	Poland
Bartosz Flak	POL-71	Poland
Piotr Mazur	POL-45	Poland
Bartek Szydłowski	POL-41	Poland
Krzysztof D¹bkowski	POL-4	Poland
Vladimir Krutskikh (1973)	RUS-1	Russia
Mark Andrews	GBR-88	Scotland
Gasper Vincec (1981)	SLO-5	Slovenija
Pablo Arrarte Elorza	ESP-310	Spain
Rafael Trujillo	ESP-100	Spain
Diego Fructuoso	ESP-1	Spain
Albert Vadell	ESP-836	Spain
Daniel Birgmark (1973)	SWE-11	Sweden
Olof Lundqvist	SWE-739	Sweden
Bjorn Smit	SWE-31	Sweden
Anders Nilsson	SWE-41	Sweden
Johan Tillander	SWE-736	Sweden
Stefan Fagerlund	SWE-734	Sweden
Kristian Åderman	SWE-7	Sweden
Gautschi Thomas	SUI-496	Switzerland
Olexiy Borysov (1983)	UKR-1	Ukraine
Zach Railey	USA-4	USA