B-Boat for Ben

We speak to Britain's most talented racing sailor about his progress at Emirates Team New Zealand

Elba at the weekend saw Ben Ainslie's debut on the Swedish Match Tour as a helmsman for a Emirates Team New Zealand team in the Toscana Elba Cup - Trofeo Locman match race.

Sadly among the 16 A-list skippers taking part in this exceptional regatta Britain's triple Olympic medallist didn't make it through to the final eight, although in this respect he was in good company alongside Alinghi's principle helmsman Peter Holmberg, Luna Rossa's Francesco de Angelis, former match race world champion Karol Jablonski and K-Challenge helmsman Thierry Peponnet.

"We were a bit bemused because we thought we'd done enough winning four races," explained Ainslie of their progress through the round robin. "Our group was tied with four points at the top and somehow we were the ones who got knocked down to the sudden death knock-out stage." In this Ainslie fell to his namesake and fellow Olympic sailor, Ian Ainslie, helmsman for Team Shosholoza through a basic timing error at the start. "We were in control at the start, no pressure coming into the start, we were leading back, and we had our timing wrong and we were over the line. It is pretty terminal in that much breeze. So it was hugely frustrating - but you learn the hard way sometimes," says Ainslie.

Emirates Team New Zealand's Dean Barker was not competing, despite having recently won the Congressional Cup in Long Beach, as wife Mandy is expecting a baby within the next week. Barker is to return for the next America's Cup Acts at the end of June in Valencia followed by the Swedish Match Cup in Marstrand in early July.

Disappointingly for British fans Ainslie will not be competing in this year's America's Cup in the afterguard of Emirates Team New Zealand as he was last year. This is not a case of evil Grant Dalton relegating our boy to the B-boat. Ainslie had the choice of remaining in the Kiwi A-boat afterguard or helming the B-boat. He chose the latter, sharing this role with Kelvin Harrap.

"Pretty soon after we started properly in January the team decided that the best thing was to get a race team together as soon as possible," Ainslie explains. "With me deciding to do more helming that meant I wasn't on the race team, so I won't be doing any of the Acts. That was just a decision I had to make. In the future I want to helm. That is what I have always wanted to do and it is what I think I am good at. So it was a hard decision but really there was only ever one way to go for me. It is going to be hard for me when the team is racing and I am not part of that. But it is still a fantastic learning opportunity. You just have to look at it in a positive way. My role now is to push Dean along as hard as possible. It is still a big contribution to the team because every helmsman in the Cup is going to need to be pushed very hard in house."

There was the notion that if Ainslie's supreme talent shone through immediately then Barker's position as helmsman might be under threat but this never transpired. "We started sailing in November and things came to a head in January-February time," continues Ainslie. "So we had a couple of months and that was the right decision in terms of what we saw on the water. But in a couple of years I would hope to be much closer to Dean. That would help him as well if I am able to push him harder."

Match racing with a whole team at the helm of an enormously powerful 80ft long America's Cup boat takes place on water like Finn or Laser sailing, but it might just as well be another sport. "It has certainly been frustrating at times when you are at the top of your game in another class or style of sailing and you go out and get made to look pretty average at times," Ainslie concedes. "That is quite hard. But it has been a huge learning experience and that is rewarding itself when you see yourself getting better all the time. It is always the way - it is never easy."

Match racing requires an entirely different mind-set to fleet racing and to get good at this on the water chess game requires experience. "The hardest thing is the starting and I finally feel like I am getting to grips with that, " says Ainslie of his new discipline. "All the manoeuvres are set pieces and until you have been through every scenario about five times only then do you start to get a handle on it, because the moves have to be instinctive and if something happens the opportunity is gone."

Equally hard is the transition from dinghies to giant lumbering ACC boats. "Time on distance, when the boat stalls out, how long it takes to get going, turning distances and all those sorts of thing - I'm still learning that and it takes a long time," say Ainslie.

And then, perhaps the hardest part of all, is making the leap from sailing singlehanded to having a crew around you and having to operate as a cog within a bigger mechanism. "Part of helming is to trying to lead the boat and push everyone along, so that is another learning experience as well," continues Ainslie. "It is a subtle balance between leading the boat along without imposing yourself too much and not getting above people too much."

Fortunately Ainslie says he is getting on well with the Kiwis, they have a similar attitude to him, they work hard, play hard and it is an amazing team to be involved with - something he is proud of. He also has as his coach one of the grandees of America's Cup sailing, Rod Davis, who's other star pupils have included Russell Coutts. However one of the little ironies of America's Cup teams is how little match racing they do.



Over the New Zealand summer Emirates Team New Zealand have been focussing on straight line speed testing between NZL81 and 68, the former illbruck Challenge Cup boat. Work was only completed on NZL82 around a month ago following repairs to the damage she sustained when she was blown off her cradle in Marseille last year, as well as upgrading her to Version 5 of the ACC rule.

Ainslie says that 81 and 82 were higher stability boats than Alinghi or BMW Oracle and testing with the less stable NZL 68 has given them considerable insight into how to make that style of boat perform. While the emphasis has been on this the only occasion they have carried out match race practice in the Cup boats has been when conditions on the volatile Hauraki Gulf proved too unstable to carry out speed trails.

However Ainslie has received some match race coaching under Davis. They competed in the New Zealand match racing nationals together in November and outside of this the team get to practise in Etchells. "It has certainly been great the practise we have done," says Ainslie. "We have got Dean, who is obviously at the top of his game, and we have got Kelvin Harrap and myself. So it is a good group to get some really good training in."

Returning to the topical subject of his happiness at Emirates Team New Zealand following his relegation to the B-boat, it is easy to jump to the conclusion that we are soon to see a repeat of the scenario Ainslie went through four years ago with OneWorld, when he resigned, returning to the familiar world of Olympic sailing.

"The big difference I think is that what everyone needs to know in any team is where you stand and what is expected from you," explains Ainslie. "For me that wasn’t the case at OneWorld but with Team New Zealand whether it is good or bad for you, at least you know what is expected of you and where you stand and that’s all anyone can ask, so long as you know that you can go and set goals for yourself and move on. Certainly I hated walking away from OneWorld. That was the hardest decision I've ever had to make. Nobody likes to give up on something and certainly at Team NZ we are all really focussed on trying to win the Cup back."

In an interview with Julie Ash on the New Zealand Herald today (click here to read it) Emirates Team New Zealand head Grant Dalton compares the predicaments of fellow British Olympic medallist Iain Percy, helm of fledgling Italian America's Cup team +39 and Ainslie's role within the Kiwi team. Drawing a Formula 1 analogy - Percy's situation, Dalton cites, is similar to driving for Minardi, while Ainslie's is similar to that of Pedro de La Rosa, McLaren's B-boat driver. If Barker injures himself or if Ainslie starts to beat him with a consistency that cannot be ignored, then Ainslie might yet find himself behind the wheel of the A-boat in this America's Cup cycle.

As if to demonstrate that Ainslie isn't being relegated to the back bench it should be remembered that it is Emirates Team New Zealand who are bank-rolling his match racing campaign this season. Following on from the Elba Cup, this week Ainslie immediately launches into the next Swedish Match Tour event in Germany and will be following this up with campaigning as helmsman in the Trombini Cup in Ravenna, Match Race Portugal and the new Swedish Match Tour event in the glamorous resort of St Moritz. For most of these events he will be sailing with the experienced duo of Andy Hemings and Ray Davies and various personnel from the Kiwi Cup team according to the number of bodies required for each event and the availability of 'A' boat sailors between the America's Cup Acts this year.

In addition to this 2005 will see Ainslie dusting off his Finn. His first regatta will be SPA straight after Match Race Germany and he will be following this with the Europeans in Sweden. And the Finn Gold Cup in Moscow?

"Maybe. I have entered it but I don't know if I am actually going to do it," confides Ainslie. "It sounds like a pretty average event for a world championship, it is on some lake where it is not big enough to hold it with all the boats, so there are going to be four fleets of 25 which make it sound like a joke for a world championship. So I am not really sure if I want to put myself through that."

Aside from this he has been asked to get involved with a TP52 campaign, but is not sure that with his already busy schedule he will leave him time. "I’ll see how that works out. It sounds like a great class."