Beefy Ben

madforsailing caught up with the new Finn European champion, Ben Ainslie

Generally over the week Ainslie felt his sailing improved. "I'm slowly getting used to sailing the boat in those conditions, I got faster and faster downwind and that obviously helped my results. I had a different sail which I tried on one day. I learned a lot about that sail - it didn't work particularly well - and my general sailing fitness and learning to sail the boat in the strong conditions. It was one these sails they designed a couple of years ago which is an all-round sail but I tried it because I thought conditions were a bit lighter, but the breeze ended up filling in and it just didn't work at all for me, so I quickly changed back to the sail I'd been using before and got back up to speed."

There was another crucial eye opener for Ben. "Most of the races lasted two hours, which to me was a sort of marathon! The longest Laser races we'd normally have was only an hour, so I was having to use the compass a lot more and think about the strategy a lot more than perhaps you would in Laser racing. Apparently long races and upwind finishes that the standard thing, back to the old days..."

The venue as Cesne on the Turkish coast also got the thumbs up. "It was a great venue. It was almost open seaway, with a few islands around, which made the breeze a little bit shifty and the waves were great, they built up to around a metre swell the downwind legs were good fun and we had decent breeze every day. Going upwind was a pleasure because going downwind it was so hot!"

In terms of competition Ainslie says the Europeans were right up there. "Mateusz [Kusznierewicz], the Polish guy was there. The only person missing was Sebastien Godefroid. Certainly Luca is sailing very well and he's a tough competitor and he was hard to beat in the conditions we had in Cesne because they were quite long courses and quite strong conditions and he's very fast in those upwind. The competition was as stiff as it will be for the Gold Cup next week."

Aside from the Finn Gold Cup on 20-28 July, the only other major event coming up is the pre-Olympics in Athens the week after Cowes Week. The Finn sailors already have spent two weeks training there prior to going to Cesne. "It is not such a big event but it is really a good opportunity for people to get used to the conditions out in Athens at a similar time to when the Olympics will be held," says Ainslie.

With a relatively open calendar for the rest of the year, Ainslie says he will be training hard. His coaches are Finn guru David 'Sid' Howlett and Mark Littlejohn. "It works very well. David is obviously very good on the technical side of it, like getting the mast going fast, and has a lot of experience in the Finn and Mark is very good on the body movement and kinetics side of it."

Ainslie is considering go to Spain to train over the winter, otherwise there is talk of a contingent of Finn sailors taking part in a circuit in New Zealand around the time of the America's Cup. Anyone wondering if Ben is going to receive the 11th hour call-up from GBR Challenge should bear in mind that it would simply not be possible for him to join Peter Harrison's posse as he is completely bound up in confidentiality agreements from when he was sailing with the OneWorld campaign.

So how does he think other UK Finn Olympic contenders such as the highly rated Andrew 'Bart' Simpson, Charlie Cumbley and Chris Brittle react to someone with his reputation and Olympic background suddenly jumping into their class? "It must be hard for them, but I'm really grateful for the way they've accepted me into the class. We trained very hard down in Athens before the Europeans and I think that showed in the results. Bart had a bit of a nightmare of an event but he still pulled through to finish sixth which was a bloody good result. Charlie Cumbley should have been 10th but was 11th because a Greek guy managed to pull off a protest. And Chris Brittle won the juniors. So everyone did very well and if we can keep working together we'll continue getting some good results," he says.

Like Iain Percy and Paul Brotherton, Ainslie is looking to do some more big boat sailing to earn some cash to keep his Olympic campaign afloat. "I did the IRM Nationals on Babbelas. That went really well and we had a good time. And I'm sailing at Cowes Week for Volvo, who are sponsoring me, Iain and Shirley. That's on a Swan 70, Serano. This autumn there isn't much Finn sailing going on, other than training, so it would be good to do more big boat sailing, because it is fun and it does help with campaign costs."

It is remarkable that despite the RYA's effort and money from the lottery, Ben Ainslie, who is perhaps Britain top Olympic sailor, should still be strapped for cash. But Ainslie admits that this is the case: "I've been struggling this season, because I had the costs of having to buy new boats from scratch and a lot of new kit, so I've struggled, although I've been very fortunate to have a lot of support from the RYA though lottery funding, but I've been trying hard to find sponsorship, and so far not been so successful although Volvo have kindly loaned us a car. That's a big help but we're still looking for some financial support. I quite fully appreciated quite how fortunate I was in the Laser that I didn't have to worry about those sorts of things because it is a relatively cheap boat, but you get into classes like Finns and Stars and even more so Ynglings and it all suddenly becomes quite expensive."

Then maybe going hungry from time to time is all part of the Olympic tradition.