Our hero

The Daily Sail tackles a cappucino with GBR Challenge's new starting helm Andy Beadsworth

"It was a bit of a lucky coincidence," says Beadsworth, playing down his part in GBR Challenge's success. "For sure Andy [Green] was having a few problems in some of the early starts, a couple of things not going his way and his nerves probably took a hit, because he was a bit unlucky. Coming in and being able to settle it down..we had a reasonable start with Prada, it was nothing too complicated, but we survived it and executed it quite well and it just settled everybody a little bit I think. There is no doubt that Andy can do a lot better than he was seen to do in the first four races otherwise he wouldn't have been on 70 to start with."

The two starting helms have differing backgrounds - Green, 27 after graduating up the RYA ranks concentrated solely on match racing, winning the National Match Racing title and becoming a regular face on the Swedish Match Tour, while Beadsworth, 35, is a former Laser youth sailing champion and has since been a tenacious Soling Olympian although the podium spot has always eluded him.

In circles such as these one gets the impression that an Olympic background carries more cred than a match racing one, unless it is America's Cup. So why was Green chosen in the first place?

"I think in the very early days when we first started I broke my arm on my bike and that put me under pressure," admits Beadsworth. "For the Jubilee I hadn't raced and Andy got the slot there and did a particularly good job and the world recognised what a good job he did and from then he was in a very strong position. Since then we've had a lot of in-house racing in some of which he excelled and in some of which I think I did. He obviously made feel them more comfortable...but at the end of the day it wasn't my choice or my decision."

Beadsworth thinks that the age and experience he has over Greeny has worked in his favour. "I guess one of the things that I am capable of bringing to the boat - I have had a lot of experience sailing in high pressure arenas, probably a little more so than Andy," he says. "I've sailed in two Olympics and been involved in four and done plenty of world and european championships...I got married!"

Following the decision, Beadsworth says the main problem he faced was slotting into the 'A' team having spent so long on the 'B' boat. "It wasn't easy at all. I felt quite uncomfortable about getting on the boat in the circumstances we were in, sailing a boat I hadn't really sailed and sailing with people I hadn't really sailed with and basically going out into the America's Cup arena up against it and under pressure. And there was a huge amount of pressure. But then in a lot of ways it couldn't have been a lot worse either, so that was the plus side."

Fortunately for Beadsworth his first day behind the helm ended up with the crew kicking their heels on board as they wallowed in the the Hauraki Gulf waiting for the wind to materialise and for a race to get underway. "I just spent a day on the boat and that might have added to the pressure, but in a lot of ways I was just on the boat, sat with the lads and it gave me 24 hours to think about it."

Beadsworth says he was not aware of any other changes that were made as a result of him coming aboard. He simply slotted into the existing afterguard structure, with Ian Walker as skipper, Adrian Stead calling tactics and Jules Salter 'calling the numbers'.

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