Bowman Ben

TheDailySail caught up with Ben Ainslie, playing an unfamiliar role at the Investors Guaranty Bermuda Gold Cup

A sight this journalist wasn't expecting to see at last week's Investors Guaranty Bermuda Gold Cup what that of Finn World Champion Ben Ainslie sailing on the bow of Dean Barker's Omega Match Race Team (above).

The rumour mill was rife with theories on the significance of this. Following John Kostecki's sudden about turn, apparently on the verge of signing with Team New Zealand one minute, only to commit to joining Oracle BMW Racing's afterguard the next, Team New Zealand are still heavily on a recruiting drive and Ainslie is on their list of possible candidates for a position in the Kiwi team's afterguard.

In Bermuda Ainslie was playing this down. "It is not trialling for Team New Zealand. I would hate to think I was on trial anyway! I suppose like a lot of the teams they are looking for people. It is just a chance to come out here and do some different racing."

Ainslie says that he knows Barker from their crossover in the Laser class, and the Team New Zealand helm called him to find out if he wanted to race the Bermuda Gold Cup as his team's bowman/tactician. "As you can imagine I was a bit concerned about the bowman thing! But after having just finished the Worlds, and having a bit of time out, I thought it would be great to come out to Bermuda, to do some different racing and catch up with what is happening on the match racing circuit."

Taking the bowman role for the first time ever Ainslie inevitably experienced a few teething problems. While the team showed considerable brilliance they were not sailing as consistently as in previous Swedish Match Tour events which Dean Barker put down to the Bermuda Gold Cup being their first non-America's Cup match racing event since they beat Russell Coutts and Alinghi in the Swedish Match Cup in 2002.

One of the most hideous moments for the team came on the finish line of the final race of the petite-final against Jesper Radich. Approaching the finish line they had to get rid of a penalty turn, which they had time to do, but in the process they received a further penalty for not dropping their spinnaker adequately. This cost them the race. As a result Radich went on to take third place, leaving Barker's Omega Match Race Team in fourth position.

"We did well to get this far, considering I have never sailed with the other guys and it was probably a bit tricky for them having me on the bow," said Ainslie admitting that it was rather daunting to be thrown into doing bow for the seasoned Kiwi unit of Barker, James Dagg and Tony Rey. "They are a great group of guys to sail with. They are really calm. They helped me out a lot with guidance, when things didn’t go that well they kept their cool, which I guess is a sign of a really good team. So I really really enjoyed it."

While being non-committal about Team New Zealand Ainslie is gearing himself to join a Cup program once the Olympics are over next summer. "I am really really keen to get involved with the Cup again. I didn't like the way I left it last time. That is not the way I like to do things. So I am keen to get back and put things straight and try and have a successful run at the Cup in a team and position I'm happy with. Whether that will come I’m not sure at the moment."

Over the summer there were strong rumours about Ainslie signing for GBR Challenge and Ainslie agrees that he would love to sail with a successful British challenge, but with the emphasis on the word 'successful'. "That’s is foremost in my future ambitions, but there is no point in doing something if you have not got the tools to win. So I’m not going to get involved with something if it is not realistically going to be competitive. I really hope GBR gets the money. Obviously Peter Harrison is in a tricky position. He is passionate about the Cup but he needs support and hopefully someone will step in and support him."

Ainslie says he would certainly consider signing with GBR Challenge if the right pieces were to fall into place, but the clock is ticking..."Alinghi and Oracle are already on the road. It is almost too late already. A lot of the top players are getting taken off the market, so it is quite an interesting time at the moment."

Also he says that he doesn't want to end up in the same predicament as he found himself at OneWorld. "You have to be given the right direction to work in. The position I found myself in last time, where I had no experience and was given a roaming role, was virtually impossible because you don’t know where to go. So if someone said to me ‘this is what we want you to do, get on and do it,’ that is a lot easier." Ainslie says he would like to helm, "but then so do 150 other people. But I think that is where my talents lie and that is what I’d like to do in the future."

An interesting point Ainslie makes is that it is hard for Olympic sailors to know when to make the break into 'professional' sailing. "It is different to other sports like rowing where you have this professional side afterwards with the America’s Cup. It does come to a point where you have to get on the road to the America’s Cup experience. If you look at Coutts and Dickson and these people - they’ve been at it for 15 years or more. So there is a lot to be learned and it a very difficult question as to when you make that step."

Obviously nothing America's Cup-wise will happen for Ainslie until the Olympics are out of the way next summer. He begins training again at the end of November through until the rather premature Worlds in Rio de Janiero in February. "Then I'll come down from that and have a little break and then start building up for Athens, do a few of the European events, then I'll train a lot in Athens and try and get the equipment set up properly for those conditions." He expects to sail at Palma, Hyeres and the Europeans in La Rochelle and will spend June and July in Athens.

Ainslie says he has already spent more time sailing in Athens than most of his competitors with the exception of top Finn sailor Emilios Papathanasiou, who heralds from Athens and will benefit from the Finn course being off his local sailing club during the Olympics.

Training-wise Ainslie says there are a few small things he thinks he can improve on on the water (let's face it he has won the last two Finn Gold Cups) but the main issue is his weigh. "I can put the weight on but I lose it pretty quickly when I do an event. I would like to be 94-95kilos, but a steady 94-95kg rather than 94 kilos at a peak and 91-92 kilos at the bottom. So I’ll be doing more weight training again this winter trying to put on that extra weight."

Although Ainslie seems not to have suffered this in the build up to previous Olympiads, there is the issue of not peaking too soon. "It’s down to careful planning," he says. "It is important not to either do too little or too much that you end up getting burned out by June-July time and you don’t want to go sailing when you should be really putting in the hours in Athens. So I think building up to the Worlds is important and then having some downtime after that so you are fully revved up for 3-4 months of full time sailing leading up to the Games."

Aside from the sailing it is important for the Olympic sailors to acclimatise with their surroundings. Ainslie says that for the Olympics the RYA have sorted out some extremely good apartments that are a stone's throw from the sailing areas. "Another area that the RYA have been pushing hard is the team bonding - everyone working together which is important. That is in place so that will make the time out in Athens that little bit more enjoyable."

Looking back at the Finn regattas this year Ainslie says there were a few surprises. Sebastien Godefroid started the season with a vengeance following his massive training regime over the winter. He says he was also impressed by the performance of Spanish sailor Rafael Trujillo who finished second at the Worlds in Cadiz just four points astern of him. "I hadn’t quite expected Rafael to put it together as well as he did at the Worlds, as did Bart [Andrew Simpson]. He’s had a really hard time this year so for him to turn it around was really good for him. So I guess what you can take from that is that it will be even closer in Athens next year. There will be even more people with a chance of winning."

Although Ainslie would like to get into the right Cup campaign, he'll be 27 next year and says he would not rule out another Olympic campaign after Athens. "Probably not in the Finn. Maybe a Star and there are some rumours about the Soling coming back..." (Last we heard all the keelboats were going to be dropped for China in 2008...?)

He also acknowledges that if he is going to become an A-list America's Cup helmsman he needs to become good at match racing.

"It is so different to fleet racing. There are two or three pivotal moments in a race which decide the race and for the rest of it nothing really happens. Whereas in a fleet race if something goes wrong you have perhaps got another half an hour or a hour to do something to sort it out. In this [match racing] is it is pretty much all over and it can be incredibly frustrating. And so much can depend on the umpire calls, but really that is the same as the problems we have in fleet racing with rule 42."

He cites a piece of advice given to him by Peter Gilmour during his stint at OneWorld, that it is very hard to be good at both fleet racing and match racing simultaneously - you either have either focus on one or the other.

So at some point there is a strong likelihood, whether or not Ainslie signs to a Cup team, that we will be seeing him out honing his skills on the match race circuit. "If you want to be a helmsman of the future in the America’s Cup you’ve got to be one of the top match racing guys out there, so you have to get out thereon the circuit, get the invites - that’s the hard thing, starting out. But it definitely interests me."

He also understands that to be driver for a Cup team it is not good enough to simply be a budding match racer. "That is not something which you are constantly striving to get to, you kind of need to be there from the start so your focus is completely on boat speed." Cup sailing he adds is also very different from match race tour events as there is more emphasis on heading the right way off the start line to find the right shift.

Already aged 26 Ainslie is one of the most accomplished sailors the UK has ever seen and if the America's Cup doesn't completely consume him in the future then it is possible he may ultimately follow in his father's footsteps and go round the world in the Volvo Ocean Race or even in the Vendee Globe - after all Lasers, Finns and Open 60s in the Vendee Globe share one common trait: they are all singlehanders...

"I guess ever since I was a kid growing up I had dreams of winning the Olympics and I wanted to win the America’s Cup and I wanted to win the round the world race. That is probably still the same - it is a pretty tall order, but I am a third of the way there! I would dearly love to win the America’s Cup. That would be fastastic and it would even be better to win it for England."