Ben Ainslie returns to competitive sailing in British waters at the helm of the Great Britain SailGP Team F50.
The Great Britain Sail Grand Prix is in Plymouth over the weekend of the 30 and 31 July, and a win in the home event would be Ainslie’s first SailGP event win since Bermuda in April 2021.
To date the multi-medal winning Olympic sailor and America’s Cup helm has only managed to win one SailGP event in nine event starts.
This compares with 11 wins for Tom Slingsby and the Australia team and three wins for Nathan Outteridge helming the Japan team.
Reflecting this poor win total It does seem that Ainslie’s aggressive tactics of season 2, resulting in penalties and boat damage, have been replaced with a more conservative approach, which has resulted in more consistant placings.
Second and third place finishes in the first two events of this season see the British team currently in joint second place overall, tied with Phil Robertson’s Canada.
SailGP has managed to pull in a host of top Olympic and America’s Cup names, but it’s the early adopters who are still ruling the roost.
Slingsby and Outteridge have won all the events except the one win claimed by Ainslie over a year ago.
Tom Slingsby is now on a five-event win roll and with Outteridge and the JPN team now sidelined with financial problems, it seems there is little to stop him extending that run.
This has to change if the SailGP league is really going to take sailing – or this high-speed, high-tech version – into mass market popularity.
At present it has a rapidly closing window of opportunity before the 2024 Paris Olympics and the 37th America’s Cup grab the media – and the competitors – attention again.
More personalities and competitive racing action are urgently needed to create a fan base and capture the media headlines.
Formula 1 was dying on its wheels with Lewis Hamilton sweeping from victory to victory. A controversial overhaul of the cars reset the status quo and suddenly its all up for grabs again.
Another problem for the event is where new team owners are to come from to take the concept to the next level.
Ainslie along with Chris Bake was the first of the original eight SailGP teams to convert to a third party owned franchise.
Since then two new teams have taken on the SailGP concept. Switzerland SailGP in a three year project with partners ‘VI Foundation’ and ‘Lundin Energy’ and a second full franchise, Canada SailGP with owner Fred Pye.
Professionally, Pye is currently the chairman and CEO of digital asset management company 3iQ, the logo of which adorns the Canadian F50.
Heading into the Great Britain Sail Grand Prix, the team sit tied in joint second place with Great Britain on the Championship leaderboard.
At present SailGP founders Russell Coutts and Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison are still on the hook for everything else.
Covid wrecked the original timescale and the ever-expanding fallout from the war in Ukraine looks like it could cause more setbacks.
But the Olympics and an America’s Cup in Europe in 2024 could be even more of a blow to the SailGP band-wagon.
How long Ellison will continue his financial involvement if the uptake of the team franchise and development of the circuit stalls will be key.
In this its third season the SailGP league has expanded to ten(ish) teams and eleven global event venues, but dedicated involvement seems limited.
Ainslie has indicated that he wants to see the expansion continue with the season calendar adding more racing events. He has suggested taking the schedule from an event ‘every six weeks’ to ‘every two weeks’ and even separate leagues in the ‘northern and southern hemisphere’ that come together for the Grand Final.
A first step would be for the event to become more competitive, and Plymouth is a good place to start.
Related Post:
Ainslie returns after six year gap to race in front of a home crowd
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