It’s been over a year and a half since the last America’s Cup ended and, for Ben Ainslie, the intervening months have been “a hell of a journey”.
Sitting on the roof of a five-star hotel in the Sardinian capital of Cagliari overlooking the waters where recently the competitive journey began for the 38th America’s Cup, he admits just making it here in one piece has been an achievement.
A £180m High Court legal battle with Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos over the ownership of the boat that the team raced at the last Cup and other assets is still a monstrous distraction in the background.
That and reshaping the way that the entire America’s Cup is run has taken up his time to the extent that any personal sailing ambitions have fallen by the wayside.
“It’s been a rollercoaster ride with plenty of challenges,” says the four-time Olympic champion. “We’ve got there, which is the main thing, and everyone’s excited to get back on the water. This is not the start of the journey but a line in the sand.”
When Ainslie and Ratcliffe thrashed out a partnership to win the America’s Cup for Britain for the first time in the event’s rich history over a couple of gin and tonics, it was all smiles. But that relationship eventually soured and Ainslie was left to seek backing from elsewhere for a fresh stab at the Cup.
There has been a legal back and forth ever since, the finances becoming precarious enough that, as Ainslie puts it, “there was a period where I was having to fund it myself”.
But his belief never wavered in the ongoing battle to win the Cup and it reached a successful conclusion with Peter Dubens and Oakley Capital coming on board.
Looking back on the tumultuous months to get to that point, he says: “I was committed to keeping the team going and keep the designers and key people together and believed that we would get the partnership together and then be investable. Thankfully that’s how it’s played out, but there was plenty of risk involved. But that’s my experience in life, you don’t only see an opportunity, you go for it and I was prepared to do that. I was willing to take that risk and thankfully it played out.”
He describes the legal battle with Ratcliffe and Ineos as, “just a journey, a slightly painful journey” but he has belief that the courts will eventually decide in his and his Athena Racing operation’s favour.
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“To say I was confident is a bold statement,” he says. “But we’re firm in our position and, if you look at the challenges of that, I wouldn’t stand one’s ground if I didn’t feel it’s the right thing to do, and we’re in a good position.”
There is an element of regret, though, that the relationship with Ratcliffe fissured and the two parties eventually went their separate ways.
It has left Ainslie and his team slightly on the back foot in the build-up to next year’s Cup, but he has faced plenty of adversity before and used it to good effect. He likes to say that “sometimes the whole ‘siege mentality’ thing is helpful”.
The time spent in legal fights, getting new backers and changing the Cup to a format where each team now has a seat on the board in shaping the event rather than the defender simply setting the rules has taken Ainslie away from the water, and he readily admits that he deeply misses.
But there is every chance that his racing days are done, with Dylan Fletcher stepping up as the team’s on-the-water leader.
Fletcher is in the mould of Ainslie in his drive and competitiveness, and states that he never wavered in his belief that the team would get itself back racing again with new supporters. “People ask if I was worried and I said, ‘no, because I have Ben’,” says Fletcher. “I just knew he’d get it sorted and I could focus on getting faster on the water. And he’s empowered me a lot by telling me just to do what I’ve got to do to make us go faster.”
As for Ainslie, he has no plans to make any grandiose retirement announcement just yet. For now, his sailing days are on hold at least. “My focus has been so far away from sailing the boat and so full on that, if I was sailing, I can’t imagine I’d be anywhere near focused enough to do a good job,” he admits.
“It’s not something I’m even considering right now. That might change and it might be the right thing down the road, which is why I don’t want to be one of those people with the big fanfare ‘I’ve retired’ and then: ‘Oh look, I’m coming back.’
“I don’t want to turn up last minute and tell everyone I’m sailing the boat. That’s not how you create the right atmosphere on a sports team – you’ve got to earn the right. I’d have to put a hell of a lot of time and effort into that and, right now, I don’t see that happening.”
Ainslie and his rivals are currently trying to turn the America’s Cup into sailing’s answer to F1 and it is intriguing that in May Oakley Capital brought Christian Horner into its ranks as an advisor. Quite what input the former Red Bull Racing team boss could have is not clear, but Ainslie is open to it.
Like Horner, Ainslie is a serial winner and, having won the Cup once before as part of an American contingent, he is unwavering in his ambition for that first British win.
“That’s why I started this team,” he concludes. “Why would you do something and get involved just to have a go but then it doesn’t work and you call it quits?”
Photograph by Cameron Gregory/Athena Sports Group