DIn 1851 the Royal Yacht Squadron's first race for the £100 cup consisted of 15 yachts, 14 British, one absent. America, a 101-foot schooner built in New York, was brought in specifically to showcase the skill of American shipbuilders. In the words of one writer, it came like a sparrow hawk among wood pigeons. As every young English sailor learns from his grandfather's knee, Queen Victoria was watching from a Royal yacht as America came into view at the end of a 53-mile (98 km) race around the Isle of Wight. asked the signalman and who was second behind it. “Your majesty,” he is thought to have told her, “no second.”
America won that first race by 24 minutes, and the better part of 200 years later the British still haven't come close to winning the trophy, which was soon renamed in honor of the winner. Since 1964, the Sovereigns, skipped by Peter Scott, the only child of Antarctic explorer Robert Scott, have not had a chance after losing 4-0 to the US yacht Constellation.
Until now. At two o'clock on Saturday afternoon, Sir Ben Ainslie will finally lead another British challenge for the Cup. His team, Ineos Britannia, won the right to race against defending America's Cup champions Emirates Team New Zealand in the Challenger Qualifiers that concluded last week, defeating four rivals Switzerland, Italy, USA and France. It has cost Ainsley and his team tens of thousands of hours and hundreds of millions of pounds. Now they have to find out if it's worth it in a maximum of 13 races. Win through the first seven.
“It's a very proud moment for us,” Ainslie said Friday. “We've been going to this final for 10 years, so what an opportunity this is. We're going to give it everything we've got. ” Ainslie, 47, has already won everything in her sport. She is the most successful sailor in Olympic history, having won 11 World Championship titles, and also won the America's Cup in 2013 as a tactician for America's Oracle Team USA. But this is his chance to become the first captain to win the trophy for Britain. , has become his white whale. He has spent a decade chasing it. His patron Sir Jim Radcliffe has raised over £100 million so far.
“Why?” Ainsley said he returned to look at the trophy, affectionately known as the “old mug”. “That speaks for itself, doesn't it? Britain is a very proud sporting nation, and has a proud maritime history, and this trophy was just missing. That's why. “The fact that Britain has never won the America's Cup is what motivates us,” he said.
Ainslie describes it as the hardest task in the game. New Zealand, under their captain Peter Burling, have won the last two editions of the tournament and as defending champions they have earned the right to dictate the terms and conditions of the latest tournament. On top of that, the New Zealanders have been working on their boat for the past three weeks as Ainsley and his crew compete in tough races against other competitors. They've had plenty of opportunities to study Ainslie's strategy and Ineos Britannia's strengths and weaknesses on the water, but Ineos Britannia don't really know what form Emirates New Zealand will take.
“As far as who has the advantage, I'd say for sure it's the New Zealand team,” Ainslie said. “They were able to get data from competing boats to work on their boat structure for two or three weeks. If there's one team here that really knows the competition, it's Team NZ, not us. So that is what we are against. But we've had an incredible final and we're ready for another. That's the game.”
Ainslie's co-helm, Dylan Fletcher, described Ineos Britannia as “pretty broken and capable” after their last qualifying race. against Italian side Luna Rossa. On Friday, Fletcher said “the Kiwis have what it takes to get us ready”.
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England have two aces. One is in their back room. All the data from their fleet is fed to the analytics team at the Mercedes Formula One factory in Brackley, where analysts work in real-time. The changes they make to the boat's structure mean it only gets faster from one race to the next.
The New Zealanders will do the same, but don't have all the F1 expertise to pull it off. Ainslie, the other card from Ineos Britannia, has more match betting experience than Burling. Burling, a laconic type, doesn't seem particularly bothered by comparison. They said similar things about his matches against another great match racer, Jimmy Spithill, in 2017 and 2021, and Burling won both.
Still, the expectation is that these two boats, despite their radically different pitfalls, will still be evenly matched. That is, whichever of the two captains can outscore the other players in the early stages wins the trophy. The America's Cup is a far cry from the dinghies that Ainsley started with. Working almost on push-button technology, the AC75 boats, he says, have taken the sport to a point where it relies heavily on automation. And the human element is “not as relevant as it should be”. But it's still telling, especially at that front start, when two boats jostle for optimal position heading into the race. “Ultimately, startups are going to define a race,” says Burling's co-head, Nathan Outteridge.
And eventually it will be remembered.
