The news that Ben Ainslie wanted to hear came early on Thursday morning in a tight little room at the Design Museum on the south bank of the Thames. Ainslie, the leader of a brilliant generation of British Olympic sailors, has never made any secret of his ambition to win the America’s Cup for Great Britain, but not until the announcement of Origin, a syndicate led by Sir Keith Mills, the deputy chairman of the London Olympics and a multi-millionaire businessman, last week did his dream take on a more definitive outline.
Ainslie cannot, as yet, commit himself to the cause. He is contracted to Emirates Team New Zealand for the current campaign, which reaches an exhausting climax in Valencia in July. But it is unthinkable that the double gold medallist will not be the key figure in the plans to bring the oldest trophy in world sport to these shores for the first time in more than 150 years.
“It’s fantastic that somebody like Sir Keith has announced his intentions,” Ainslie said cautiously the following day. “He’s the perfect person to get a Great Britain team going. He is a very successful businessman, seems a decent person and has an obvious passion for sailing, but right now I’ve got to get over this America’s Cup with the Kiwis.”
He will do that as reserve helmsman to Dean Barker, a position that has rewarded him and frustrated him in equal measure. Ainslie is the sailing equivalent of the reserve goalkeeper, pushing hard for a place but knowing deep down that, on the big days, he will merely be a spectator. It is a significant improvement on his first experience of the America’s Cup, with the OneWorld team in America, where he was sent up the mast to spot the wind shifts. Wasting talent and money has become an art form in the high-technology world of America’s Cup racing.
Yet there is an impressive maturity to Ainslie now that augurs well for his future in the most prestigious yacht racing arena of them all. Unlike his first campaign, where he was constantly knocking on the door of the team principal to demand justice, Ainslie has buckled down and begun to learn his trade. Recently, in a high-class match-racing series in San Francisco, he helmed his team to victory against the skipper of Alinghi, the defending America’s Cup boat. He has, he says, put in the hard yards.
It was that as much as anything else that Mills meant when, flanked by Rod Carr, the chief executive of the Royal Yachting Association, and in the presence of sports minister Richard Caborn, he talked of this being the “right place and the right time” to mount a campaign, perhaps the first serious, professionally run, challenge since 16 boats, one American, 15 British, raced round the Isle of Wight for the inaugural trophy in 1851. The feats of Ainslie and the British Olympic squad, who have headed the medals table at the past two Olympic regattas, of Ellen MacArthur and Dee Caffari in the world of solo racing, have, said Carr, made Britain “the world’s strongest sailing nation”. Only the biggest yachting prize of them all has eluded Britain’s grasp.
Yet neither patriotism nor pride lies at the heart of a successful campaign. The America’s Cup has always attracted larger-than-life characters, from the days of Sir Thomas Lipton, who lost five campaigns but sold a great deal of tea to America, Tommy Sopwith, Alan Bond and Larry Ellison, yet the most refreshing aspect of Origin’s launch last week was its absolute lack of pomp and circumstance.
“I don’t want this to be seen as an ego trip for Keith Mills or anyone else for that matter,” said Mills. “The last thing that any team wants is a rich billionaire looking over their shoulders, interfering and making inappropriate decisions. This will be a professionally managed, professionally run organisation focusing on just one thing, and that is to win.”
Mills’ track record, no less than Ainslie’s, suggests that the promise will not be empty. In guiding the London Olympic bid to success in Singapore, he demonstrated an unerring grasp of time and place and an unrivalled knack of being able to bring the best out of a team, qualities that will serve him well as team principal of Origin. Deep pockets are equally essential to success. Mills estimates that the annual budget of £20m worthy of a top -range America’s Cup team will be financed equally by private philanthropy and commercial sponsorship.
Mills has already sounded out his personal contacts to ensure that his is not the only pocket being emptied, but the changing face of the America’s Cup, with a series of races over almost two years leading up to the final challenge in Valencia and the probability of the cup being held every two years instead of four in the future, has enhanced the commercial potential of an event largely fuelled by individual fortunes.
“Since Alinghi won and brought the cup to Europe for the first time, the whole game has changed commercially,” Mills said. “The America’s Cup is pretty unique. Very few global sporting events can make that sort of impact financially and if, for example, you put it alongside Formula One, it’s actually relatively inexpensive.”
The problem is that nobody, not even Mills, is sure where and when the next America’s Cup will be held, which could prove a hindrance to recruitment and investment. If, as Mills presumes, the America’s Cup management committee decide that 2009 will be the date for the next defence, Origin will need to be ready to race by the end of this year.
At present, the team has a small rented office in London’s Long Acre and a staff of about four. To put this in perspective, Team NZ employs 110 people.
“Realistically, you’re talking about buying boats to get going and then designing a boat for the next challenge,” says Carr, whose support has already proved vital to the project.
“This is a very complex exercise. We’ve got the right sailors here, but we need excellent management, too, and top-class design skills. That might well involve recruiting non-Brits. But I’d be pretty confident that when you look down the course you’ll be able to say this is a British boat coming.”
Ainslie, too, might have to change his priorities. Balancing both Olympic and America’s Cup dreams will be almost impossible with two Cup campaigns between Beijing and London.
“I’ve only got a limited lifespan as an Olympian,” he says. “I can be at the back end of an America’s Cup boat for much longer. 2012 is a big draw, racing on your home waters will be a huge buzz and, if I was still racing the Finn, it would, for sure, be my last Olympics. But all I can do is the here and now.
“It’s very hard to plan until I know for sure when something’s happening, who wins the Cup and where and when the next one is. But as a kid I had twin goals: to win Olympic gold and win the America’s Cup for Britain, and that hasn’t changed.”
Mills shares the vision. “The most extraordinary thing for me personally would be to see at 8pm on July 27, 2012 the Olympics come to this country for the first time in my generation and within a year or two to host an America’s Cup on these shores.
“If it happens, I’d die a happy man. A happy, broke, man.”
For further information, go to www.originsailing.com
- For further information, go to www.originsailing.com
