Bart's chance

After a decade living in the shadow of Ben Ainslie, so finally Andrew Simpson gets his chance to go to the Games.

It is far from being a new topic when it comes to the Olympics, but the story is so heart-wrenching to be worth repeating. Within every class in all the larger Olympic teams there is a squad of sailors all gunning for that one spot. They dedicate their lives, spending years 100% focussed on their Olympic campaigns: training, off to a regatta somewhere around the world, more training, in and out of the gym, back to training, off to another regatta - it is a constant merrigoround. Of these, only a lucky few - one per country per class - get the opportunity to go to the Games to represent their country. And of this minority only an even smaller percentage have what it takes to get to stand on the podium. This leaves a huge mountain of largely forgotten but often very talented individuals who didn't quite make the grade. Agonisingly some are often much better than sailors from other countries who did get the national spot.

One of the most talented of these is Andrew Simpson, known generally as 'Bart', who has spent the last decade in the impossible situation living in the shadow of Ben Ainslie. Simpson's talent shone through from an early age when back in 1995, when he was just 17, he led the Olympic trials in the Laser only to be beaten by an equally young Ainslie. "Everyone else was full time and I was still at school and didn’t practice at all," recounts Simpson. "I was doing quite well and it was a bit shifty, but to be quite honest they were better."

For the Sydney Games four years later Simpson had taken up sailing full time in the Laser, and was fifth in the Worlds. However Ainslie won them and once again got the thumbs up from the selectors. Having lost the Laser spot Simpson leapt into the Finn and even though he'd only been sailing the boat for a week managed to finish third. Still not good enough.

With Iain Percy moving up to the Star so for Athens, Simpson in turn graduated up to the Finn, but then guess who left the OneWorld America's Cup team to resume his Olympic career in the big boy's singlehander? "Ben was a little bit better and more consistent then as well," recalls Simpson. Once again Ainslie won the spot to go to the Games and came home with his third medal and second Gold.

While the Hollywood version of this would have Ainslie and Simpson bitterly feuding, this couldn't be further from the truth. In fact having Simpson and Team GBR's other Laser and Finn sailors to train with will certainly have helped Ainslie along the way. "We are all really great friends," says Simpson. "Everyone has different skills and Ben is a little more ruthless and the best sailor I’ve ever seen under pressure. His dedication is phenomenal and he deserves everything he gets from all the effort he puts in."

Finally now, 12 years on from when he first had his stab at Olympic greatness, there seems every possibility that Andrew Simpson will be making it to the Games finally. In January, moments after Iain Percy had told us point blank there was no problem with him and Steve Mitchell and their Star campaign, so big Steve was off the boat and Simpson was on.

"We were doing the America’s Cup with +39 and the whole team was really shaky and we just went off and started to do some match racing and Iain was sailing with another team and I was against him and basically they weren’t doing so well," Simpson recalls of how this came about. "So we started sailing together and it seemed to go quite well and we started to click and it became quite easy, we started to get a good relationship working. So we went from there - Iain didn’t feel he had it with poor Steve to succeed in the lighter winds. Although they were very strong and very organised overall, Iain just didn’t feel his weakness in light wind sailing could be compensated by Steve, so hopefully I can help him out there."

The duo stepped into the Star together for the first time at Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta in January and posted a 17th in a fleet of 67. "We did Miami, but that was literally to go sailing and race. We bent the mast on day two and we bent it back but it wasn’t very good," says Simpson. They returned to Miami to compete in the Bacardi Cup, but annoyingly were recalled by +39 to go Cup training. "Then basically straight after the Cup, we flew out of Valencia on 10th June and were sailing on the 11th or 12th in England. We needed to get on with it. It was quite refreshing to be honest."

Since then the duo have been training constantly in Cascais ready for this week's ISAF World Sailing Championship where they posted a much more promising third place behind Robert Scheidt and Xavier Rohart's teams, in some fairly tough conditions.

According to Simpson, Percy shares many of the same attributes as Ainslie. Percy always seems a very relaxed individual ashore, although Simpson assures us this is not the case on the water. In comparison he himself is much more laid back. "I’m probably a bit too relaxed," admits Simpson. "Until I’m really angry I’m probably too relaxed. The only time I started to beat Ben was when he wound me up. So he got told not to wind me up...!"

While Steve Mitchell used to handle the organisational side of the Star campaign, Simpson says he and Percy try and do it together now, but they now have ex-Harken man Simon Rosier to run their shore support. "We both admit we are not the best at boat work and we are prepared to pay for someone to do that. Simon's a very good guy. He worked at +39 as the mechanic on the boat and looked after the deck hardware and it is nice for him to help us with this stuff. So logistically it is not too bad at the moment. Our coach David Howlett obviously helps."

This involves managing their two boats, the second being a brand new Lillia that has been freshly delivered to China. "It is a slightly different boat for the lighter winds, but it is all the same really… !" says Simpson. Apart from the boat he inherited from Ian Walker, all Percy's Stars have been from Lillia partly due to his relationship with Luca Devoti and they do seem to be the form vessel, accounting for eight of the ten boats in Monday's medal race.

So having gone from the Laser to the Finn, doesn't he find the Star to be an 'old man's boat'? "It seems to be!" says Simpson. "The speed differences are not so big. They reward you for sailing well and punish you for sailing badly. It is a great boat. Sadly they are expensive for what they are, but the good thing is that it seems that only the guys who have done well in other classes can go to this class because they have got the sponsorship. So it is good in that sense and you get a lot of top sailors sailing in it."

While going up against the legend Torben Grael was a first, many of his peers have also got into it, such as Mateusz Kusznierewicz, Xavier Rohart, Freddie Loof, etc who they have sparred with in recent years in Lasers and Finns. Over the years Simpson says he has beaten them all with the exception of, erm, Laser legend Robert Scheidt, the newly crowned World Champion in the class this week.

An oddity of campaigning the Star within Team GBR is that there is no competition and no one to train with in the British team's highly successful 'squad' system. "It is an expensive boat and Iain always seems to beat the British guys nine times out of 10 so hard that they think it is not the smartest career move," says Simpson. "In a way it would be great to have someone to push you in Britain. In the 49er and the Finn, they have achieved a lot through having close competition just like in the Lasers in the old days. It was a good system."

As a result Percy and Simpson are likely to join forces with a foreign training partner, most probably Swedish ex-Star World Champions Freddie Loof and Anders Ekström, Loof being another graduate of the Finn. "We're a bit older, so it doesn't have to be such a British thing," admits Simpson, who at 30 is a year younger than his skipper.

A bronze at the ISAF World Sailing Championship indicates that Percy and Simpson are on track and shortly they will be off to China to train for the Pre-Olympics. Before this there will be the rare opportunity to have a week off. "We’ve been a bit busy this year. We haven’t had a weekend off, even a day off since we started sailing the Star. Every day has been accounted for this year."

And when they return from Qingdao they launch straight into the Star Europeans a week and a half later. They will then return to Qingdao in the autumn to resume training. "We need to familiarise ourselves with the conditions. We’ll try and organise someone to sail with down there and provided it isn’t too cold down there it’ll be fine."

So Qingdao rather than the Star class' regular winter hang-out in Miami? "It is good for you the Olympic stuff, it keeps you tough. The funniest thing was when we did the Finn Worlds in Russia and it was horrific. We stayed on this horrific boat and then we went to Trapani [for the America's Cup Act there] and there was this big cruise ship, and there were all these people getting off it saying it was disgusting and we thought it was the Ritz. It is an amazing difference between the America’s Cup and the Olympics..."



The AC

Aside from his Olympic sailing Simpson was also strategist for Iain Percy at +39 Challenge during the recent America's Cup in Valencia. This was clearly an education as much for Simpson as for his skipper, the first time he'd sailed big boats.

"It was a great opportunity to learn a lot," says Simpson. "We’re very grateful for that, but at the same time it was very frustrating. A whole new suit of sails arriving a week after the event just summed it up! But it was a great opportunity and it was great fun but at the same time it could have been easily so much better. You get a mast the day before the last Act and then it gets broken by the Germans...

"If you’d had three months training solidly it wouldn’t have been hard to really challenge the top four and that was even with a disorganised team with not much money. And that is the sad reality of where we were at. The team potentially had some good sailors. Iain was learning a lot every day on the steering. Ian Walker was giving good advice and we had some old Italian guys who were very experienced from Prada days and a lot of youth mixed in and it was a good blend. If it was financed better and run better it could have really caused some problems. It was a great opportunity none the less."

There was also the change from their speciality of fleet racing to boat on boat match racing. "Obviously it is hard with umpires and the rules every once in a while, but it really worked very well and the Tour events seem pretty good. We have done a few of those event, but not enough so hopefully Iain and I might try and do some more."

As to whether we will see Simpson in the afterguard of Team Origin remains to be seen. If Ben Ainslie steers with Percy calling tactics and Simpson strategy then this could be a powerful unit already with considerable chemistry in place.

At this stage Simpson can 'neither confirm nor deny'. "It is a fantastic opportunity for the Brits to do something properly in the America’s Cup rather than just enter it, which seems to be what happened in the past. They have put Moose [Mike Sanderson] in charge, which is a great starting point and hopefully if they can get some top sailors involved and hopefully all the top British sailors, working in the same direction, they have a great opportunity."

So would he be happy being a full-time Cup sailor? "I think it is a great event. This is great for the passion but the Cup stuff works very well as a job. If you can take the Olympic desire to the America’s Cup it is a big asset. You see a lot of guys that seem to plod in the America’s Cup, they don’t seem to have the same desire. They do the hours but they don’t have the inspiration when they need it."

Simpson, like so many Olympic sailors who've made the move into big boats, would ideally like to be able to continue doing both to keep him honest. They is obviously the enticing prospect of the Olympic Games coming to the UK in 2012. His involvement will largely depend upon if the Star remains an Olympic class. "The Star is probably a better boat than the Yngling in the Olympics. I guess the Star has heroes in the sport and is almost one design now, whereas the Yngling, you spend more money and you are going to do well."