Olympic medallists join Leopard

Shirley Robertson and Ben Ainslie sailed on Mike Slade's giant today

Skandia Leopard, Mike Slade's 90ft flier again led the class 0 around the Solent today, this time with the aid of two star crew.

The afterguard on the property developer's new beast included Olympic Gold medallist Shirley Robertson and Ben Ainslie, visiting Britain at the moment as a brief respite from the One World America's Cup campaign. During the race today Shirley was helming and Ben was calling tactics, a role he has been manoeuivring himself into in Peter Gilmour's America's Cup syndicate.

"Mike did the start a little bit of the run and I did the rest," commented Robertson later. She already had her baptism of fire on board big boats steering Stephen James' Swan 48 Jacobite at various regattas earlier this year. But Skandia Life Leopard is by far the biggest boat she has ever sailed.

"When you're on board you don't realise how fast you are going. Quite often you come across a smaller boat and it is hard to work out the angles on how you're going to cross," she said. Today Skandia Life Leopard was not flying as she was in the stronger winds yesterday, but was still averagering 10.5 knots upwind and 12 downwind.

The mighty Skandia Life Leopard was a far cry from her Europe or even the Ynglings which Robertson is campaigning at the moment in the build up to the 2004 Olympics. "Everything is push button and takes a long time. Getting the kite up takes two minutes. But she's beautiful. All the lines run under the deck." All the calls on board are made with a long, long countdown.