At the finish of the last America’s Cup, the British INEOS Britannia team celebrated finally getting to race the defender, Emirates Team NZ, to decide the winner of the 37th AC.
But the stark reality was that they were no closer to winning the Cup than Sovereign was in 1964, when a British boat last contested the Auld Mug, and went down 3-1 to the USA defender Constellation . . . And the result was the same this time, going down 7-2 to the Kiwi defender.
There had been 19 America’s Cup matches since a British contender actually got to meet the Defender again.
Sir Ben Ainslie was the skipper/helm and constant driving force for the 2017 AC50 event, the 2021 and 2024 AC75 British AC challenges.
Billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe came on board as the financial partner for the 2021 AC36 event, stayed for AC37 and then bailed out after a disagreement with Ainslie over the set-up for the upcoming AC38 Challenge. This left Ben Ainslie with his Athena Racing Team, but no apparent financial backing, and little if any of the technical data assets from the two previous AC75 events.
The major problem for UK challengers has been the lack of a competitive design, so from that point of view, the 2024 result was a welcome step up, following two disasters. If the design improvement could be continued – a big question now following the withdraw of Formula 1 technical assistance with Jim Ratcliffe’s exit – there was a feeling (hope) that they could finally be a realistic winning challenger.
The fallout with Jim Ratcliffe has put a large question mark against that . . . Ainslie needs money, and an additional problem now could be the critical helm position.
Ainslie won medals at five consecutive Olympics from 1996 onwards, including gold at four consecutive Games from 2000 to 2012. But the AC has proved a very different game. The 2017 and 2021 designs were a disaster, most of the events spent trying to minimise the mess. and avoid the obvious question . . . how it got this far before anyone noticed/admitted how bad it was.
The 2024 AC75 design was good enough to pull-off a first ever Challenger series win but, did not have the legs when it really mattered . . . The clinical Kiwi victory raising questions of Ainslie’s tactics and undoubtably raising questions of his going again in two years’ time.
In the run-up to AC37 Ainslie withdrew from helming his SailGP F50 multihull to concentrate on the AC75, following criticism of his inconsistent performance with the conflicting priorities.
And it seems likely any potential financial backer would expect him to present a plan B, possibly involving him taking a shore-based position, which throws open the key helm position . . . who would Ainslie name as his replacement, in what has become a highly personnel hands on quest!
It never rains but it pours and Ben Ainslie has also had problems in his SailGP team. He fell-out with his SailGP helm Giles Scott, who moved to the revamped Canada SailGP team where he seemed to relish the freedom after the Ainslie team.
Dylan Fletcher, Anslie’s cohelm on the 2024 AC75 took the helm of the British SailGP boat, also performing well, lifting some of the pressure from Ainslie as he reeled from the Ratcliffe wipeout.
But first things first . . . Can Sir Ben raise the money to stay in the game . . . from that all things shall flow.
Related Posts . . .
America’s Cup – Grasping at straws
America’s Cup farrago – Are there any winners ?
38th America’s Cup – Can Dalton put the pieces back together again?
