About the Book
Knife-edge decisions, adrenalin rushes, extreme weather, bitter rivalries, heart-stopping races – they are all in a day’s work for Ben Ainslie.
Against all odds, in the London 2012 Olympics Ben Ainslie thrillingly won a fourth successive gold medal, making him the greatest ever Olympic sailor and a British hero, chosen from many to be the flag bearer for the closing ceremony.
From his proudest moment representing Team GB, to one tough decision that almost risked destroying his career, this is a unique insight into the man who cannot let himself be second best. It shows what really takes place in the white heat of competition and lifts the lid on this toughest of sports.
REVISED AND UPDATED FOR PAPERBACK TO INCLUDE LONDON 2012.
About the Author
Ben Ainslie became Britain’s youngest-ever sailing Olympic medallist when he won a silver at Atlanta in 1996, aged 19. He has since won gold at Sydney, Athens, Beijing and London, becoming the most successful Olympic sailor ever. Ben is now competing for J.P. Morgan BAR, a new team competing in the America’s Cup World Series 2012/13.
He was awarded the MBE in 2001, an OBE in 2005, and received a CBE in 2009. He has been named World Sailor of the Year on three occasions. Now 35, he was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, but spent his formative years in Cornwall. He now lives in Lymington, Hampshire.
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Copyright © Ben Ainslie 2009, 2012
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First published in Great Britain in 2009 by Yellow Jersey Press
Yellow Jersey Press
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ISBN 9780224082945
To my family, for all their love and support
Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
List of Illustrations
Dedication
Title Page
1. Lighting the Flame of a Fourth Golden Challenge
2. That Sinking Feeling
3. From the Boys in the Barracudas to the Best of British
4. My Early Promise Goes on Trial
5. Outgunned by Scheidt in the Deep South
6. Breaking Robert Scheidt’s Spell
7. Sydney on the Horizon
8. A Titanic Battle for Gold
9. Death Threats from Brazil
10. Up for the Cup
11. Fired by Adversity to Athens Gold
12. Perils at Sea
13. Back into America’s Cup Contention
14. Tensions Eased as Team Builds Towards Cup
15. Battle to Qualify for Beijing
16. Sickness Doesn’t Deter Me
17. Britain’s Sailors on the Crest of a Wave
18. London Calling … But First the America’s Cup Beckons Again
19. America’s Cup Potential Confirmed
20. On Wind and a Prayer: A Record-Breaking Attempt
21. Face-Off in Perth
22. ‘You Don’t Want to Make Me Angry!’
23. Victory Smiles on Me
24. An Emotional Moment
25. What Voyages Lie Ahead?
List of Achievements
Picture Section
Glossary
Acknowledgements
Copyright
List of Illustrations
1. Sailing at 5 years old
2. Steering our boat Sule Skerry
3. The crew of Second Life
4. Dad teaching me how to steer to a compass heading
5. The Optimist World Championships, Argentina 1992
6. After winning the 1999 Laser World Championships in Melbourne
7. Me and Iain Percy at the Laser European championships in Sardinia in 1993
8. Robert Scheidt of Brazil
9. On the podium in Atlanta
10. The final race of the 2000 Olympics in Sydney
11. Mum and Dad on the banks of Sydney Harbour
12. Team GB in Sydney
13. A visit to the gym
14. Guillaume Florent of France
15. After winning the second gold in Athens
16. On the podium in Athens
17. On the way to winning gold in Athens
18. Training
19. Me and Joey Allen
20. The 3km running test
21. Dean Barker and me
22. When I was announced as helmsman for TeamOrigin
23. The last race in Beijing
24. Receiving my third gold
25. Celebrating with friends
26. Sailing my new AC45 wing catamaran J.P. Morgan BAR
27. Competing in the America’s Cup World Series
28. The London 2012 sailing team
29. The Olympic torch relay
30. Pumping hard during the Finn competition
31. The medal race
32. Celebrating my win
33. Receiving my fourth gold
34. Carrying the Union flag at the closing ceremony
Picture credits: 1, 2, 4, 5 and 7, author’s own; 3, 6, 8, 9, 11 and 13, PPL; 10, 12, 15, 16, 27 (Matt Cardy), 29 (Ezra Shaw), 30 (Clive Mason), 32 and 33 (Richard Langdon/ocean images), Getty; 14, AFP; 17, Carlo Borlenghi; 18, 19, 20 and 21, Chris Cameron; 22, Ian Roman; 23, 24 and 25, Richard Langdon; 26, Jon Nash/J.P. Morgan BAR; 28, PA; 31, Geoff Moore/Rex Features; 34, Back Page Images/Rex Features
Chapter 1
Lighting the Flame of a Fourth Golden Challenge
IT WAS THE first Sunday in August 2012, and as I sailed out to the notoriously tricky Nothe course under the headland of the Dorset coast, I couldn’t fail to be inspired by the mighty army of excited home spectators. Now I knew how athletes who performed before many thousands in stadiums felt as I prepared myself for my medal race, the finale, maybe not just of the Finn regatta, but perhaps of my 16-year Olympic career.
In the next hour I could claim a fourth gold in as many Olympic Games, equalling the record of the great Paul Elvström, after a difficult week when my expectations had risen and fallen dramatically as I had engaged in a duel with the Dane’s countryman Jonas Hogh-Christensen. Could I maintain the momentum I had established after an indifferent start?
As I headed towards the start area, I recalled one of the best pieces of advice that I ever got. It was from my coach David ‘Sid’ Howlett, right when we started out together more than a decade ago. ‘We want to be in a position where we’re good enough to win the gold even when you’re not sailing at your best.’ That was pretty much the position in which I now found myself. It was a prescient comment by him all those years before.
This had turned out to be a totally different regatta to the one I had imagined I would sail in a week earlier. In truth, my year wasn’t turning out how I thought it would back at the beginning of 2011, riven as it had been with injury and the fallout from ‘boat-rage’, for want of a better term, during the world championships in Perth at the end of 2011. It had been a depressing New Year when it should have been a time of optimism and resolve, as it was for most British Olympic hopefuls as 2011 became 2012.
For most, the London Games shone like a welcoming beacon in midsummer. Not for me. Injury is a perennial unwanted companion to the elite athlete, and can fall into step alongside him or her when least expected, but this period of uncertainty and frustration created an unusually dark period in my life. I wasn’t sure what kind of shape I’d be in to defend my Olympic title, if I could at all.
It had all started so propitiously in the summer of 2011 as my preparation for the Games began. The main qualifying event was the Sail for Gold regatta at Weymouth and Portland – the venue for the Games. My America’s Cup ventures had only given me eight months to get back to top speed in the single-handed Finn. No doubt, down on the Jurassic Coast, some of my younger challengers may have felt there may have been some vulnerability to be exploited in the 34-year-old ‘dinosaur’, but I prevailed and won the event. Although my qualification wasn’t officially confirmed until late September – one of the first of the 550-strong Team GB to be named – it was a significant moment in my return to Olympic sailing.
However, it was after the world championships when I was disqualified after a much-publicised altercation with the crew and cameramen of a media boat – after which it was said in some quarters that I should receive a lengthy suspension, which would have ruled me out of the Olympics – that a long-standing injury flared again with a vengeance.
The human body is highly adaptable to stresses and strains, but mine has started to cry ‘Enough!’ after years of leaning out of a boat and the free-pumping required to sail in light winds. There probably aren’t many activities more likely to result in back problems.
It had troubled me for years, but was bearable. Then, during the worlds at Perth just before Christmas 2011, it got worse. Much worse. It’s a lower back issue, with pain referring down the back of the leg due to nerve restriction. I have pretty bad scoliosis and a slippage in one of my lower discs, which is the basic cause of the problem.
I immediately consulted a specialist, rather appropriately named Nelson. Richard Nelson, a consultant neurosurgeon at Bristol’s Frenchay Hospital, is extremely well-respected in his field. It was decided I should have a spinal epidural in an attempt to ease the pain. It did, but unfortunately its effect can be only temporary.
Intensive physiotherapy was going to be the way out of this injury, but the question was whether or not it could be controlled in the time available. After reviewing my condition early in the New Year, the decision was taken to operate and remove the small piece of disc that was restricting the nerve.
Mr Nelson did not hang about. Two days later, I woke up to find myself in an NHS ward full of patients who mainly appeared to be grumpy old men moaning and groaning and shouting for bed pans. It was hilarious. I was completely knocked out on the drugs and wasn’t making any sense whatsoever, but I remember thinking: ‘Can this really be happening? Here I am, lying here and I’m due to be sailing in the Olympics in six months’ time …’ It was not the most auspicious prelude to a Games I’ve ever had.
The operation was followed by a week of real rest before I started walking and doing some light jogging. The back felt fantastic. But that was the problem: I was so keen to get back into training and make up for lost ground, I overdid it and pushed myself too hard.
I started back in the gym doing some light weights. A couple of weeks later, I woke up and the whole thing had fallen apart again. That was really demoralising because everything had been progressing so pleasingly. It felt like I was back to square one.
The combination of having the anaesthetic and not moving my back for a week or so seemed to have worked. But in reality it was a short-term fix. As soon as I started loading up the back again, the old problem recurred.
I admit I was starting to panic. There was a moment when alarm bells started to ring. Inevitably, the worst-case scenario goes through your mind and you start torturing yourself with Olympics-related questions: ‘What if I can’t get on top of it?’ ‘What if all this doesn’t resolve itself?’ ‘If I’m not going to be able to perform as well as I need to, what do I do then? And how far do I push it?’ And worst of all: ‘Will there come a moment when I have to admit to myself that this isn’t going to work out?’
It was the start of a really long road of rehabilitation. I tried to stay positive and do everything I could to get back on the water, but I had two months of rehab before I was ready to go on the water again. It was definitely the most frustrating thing I’ve ever gone through.
Most of that time was spent at the rehab clinic in Bisham Abbey, Buckinghamshire, and with the team at the RYA performance unit down in Portland. It’s rather like a car having a complete overhaul and service. It wasn’t just the physical aspects that were worked on. I also underwent nutritionalist reviews and sessions with the psychologist.
Ultimately, I did pull through with that rehab, followed by a huge amount of physio every day, going through the right stretching exercises and massage work by our lead physiotherapist Lily Devine. She and her team got me to the Olympics and through them. However, I have to confess that my back is still not completely right.
My medical problems didn’t stop there. Positional vertigo, which I’d suffered from before, returned. The problem is caused by an imbalance in the inner ear, which creates issues with balance and makes your head spin when you change elevation. I also had strain injures from where I hike out on my ankles. I really was far from my best.
It did frustrate me slightly at the Sail for Gold regatta a few weeks before the Olympics. Giles Scott sailed brilliantly to win, which left me with the press on my back, suggesting I was struggling under the pressure of expectation. I found it really annoying. I could hardly say, ‘Oh, I have this problem with my ankles and can’t hike out properly. I can’t even stand up without potentially falling over.’
It was a far from ideal build-up to an event I was expected to win. I was the man who, as the saying goes, ‘you can put your mortgage on’. I didn’t need this. The more people kept saying it, the more the pressure grew and the more I could see the writing on the wall – that it may not happen. And if it didn’t, I was going to get crucified.
In this country we do have the tendency to build up people extravagantly high, and when they don’t perform or get the expected result – which can happen to anyone, and particularly with the variables involved in sailing, namely the winds, currents and strength of the opposition under the prevailing conditions – swiftly condemn them. I could see it being the mother of all set-ups.
Whatever you say, you make it worse. I tried to put the challenge ahead into perspective and tried to make the point that it wasn’t going to be that easy. There were lots of guys who could win it and it was going to be a real fight.
Ultimately, my own desire to be successful has always outweighed any external pressures and influences. That will always be the case.
I got through it and, on a far more positive note had the honour of being torch-bearer no.1 of the torch relay when the flame arrived at Land’s End in Cornwall, the county I was brought up in and where I started my association with sailing.
I would finish the Games carrying the Team GB flag at the closing ceremony.
It was the end of a long and sometimes erratic journey that had begun when I stood in Trafalgar Square in 2005 and heard the announcement of London’s winning bid for the XXXth Olympiad and, despite some adversity, had ended in triumph.
As I stood there with the flag, I did get a bit emotional. It seemed unreal. As I surveyed it all I thought to myself: ‘How on earth did I end up standing here?’ and pondered how I’d progressed from a kid growing up in Cornwall to being here, standing in the centre of the biggest event this country has seen in recent times, proudly holding our flag.
Chapter 2
That Sinking Feeling
THE WORLD OVER, from the dusty streets of São Paulo to the backyards and rough areas of waste ground of Sunderland, you’ll find youngsters kicking a football around. That’s undoubtedly the case today, even in health and safety conscious Britain! Kids will always find a way. That’s when they start to dream of emulating the great players they watch live or on TV. Never mind the professional coaching that comes their way if they demonstrate themselves talented enough to become professional sportsmen. It’s in those early years that they first hone their basic ball control and what’s makes them so good at the game.
I had my own backyard – or perhaps backwater is a more appropriate word for the creek in Cornwall – where I first learnt to love sailing. It became my own little haven in which I learnt the basics of a sport which would propel me to three Olympic golds and one silver medal.
I was approaching 8 when our family moved down from Cheshire into the former fisherman’s cottage on the edge of Restronguet Creek, near Falmouth. If you had to design a safe water playground for a child, it couldn’t have been more perfect. It had many inlets, like gnarled fingers of water, which you could go out exploring to your heart’s content. For me, it evoked Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome’s series of novels which depicted a world of childhood fantasy, mostly set on water. But this stretch had an even greater significance for me. This idyllic new world soon introduced me to the sport that I love. For that I will always be grateful.
Our creek was no more than three kilometres long, protected from the main inlet to the sea, the Fal Estuary, or the Carrick Roads as it is known, by the peninsula a hundred metres opposite, Restronguet Point. The latter has always been an exclusive place to live, the equivalent of the fashionable Rock in the north of the county. Our side of the creek was rather more modest. We had just a few neighbours and it wasn’t readily accessible by road. You had to drive along a couple of hundred metres of beach to reach our cottage, and then up a track. Not everyone’s choice of location. But for a young child it added to the magic of the place.
Restronguet Creek is like an inland tidal lake, into which flow waters from the Carnon and the Kennal rivers. It was once an important industrial waterway, a thoroughfare for ships bringing pit props from Norway and Wales for the tin mines inland. They also carried coal, lime and copper ore, which had been brought down the Carnon Valley by the Redruth and Chasewater railway. Today the creek is renowned worldwide for its beauty and its wildlife. For me, back in the mid-eighties onwards, being around boats and being able to mess about on the water all the time was my idea of heaven.
My sailing experience all began in an old wooden beginner’s dinghy, an Optimist, which will be familiar to youngsters the world over. It was – I can assure anyone who immediately makes the assumption that my sailing background was somehow privileged – nothing grand.
My parents had bought the old second-hand boat from friends of theirs as a Christmas present for me. I woke up to find this Optimist in front of me. It was a shock as I had never seen a boat this small before but I soon realised it was only designed for kids up the age of 15 and was only supposed to be sailed single-handed.
Designed in 1947, Optimists were originally intended to be the largest possible sailboat that youngsters could build themselves, using two 4ft × 8ft sheets of plywood. Although it has a flat bow, the boat has remarkably good handling characteristics. Mine was numbered 185, so it would have been one of the first ever of its type. It had a wooden mast and a red and yellow sail, and cost no more than £100. Being constructed of wood, it was much heavier than its fibreglass equivalent. It had rubber bumper rings round the side, so that if you crashed into anything you couldn’t do too much damage. This proved to be very fortunate. The only problem with the boat’s weight was that when I had to push it up the beach, I needed help.
I wasted no time in getting my present on the water that Christmas morning. We took the Optimist, or Opalong as the boat was called, down to the beach, and launched it. There was a really nice pub called the Pandora about 400 metres in the opposite direction from our cottage, on the creek. It was the social hub for my parents and their friends. My dad just said casually: ‘Off you go. We’ll walk up to the pub and see you there for lunch in fifteen minutes.’ I’d never sailed on my own before. I just had my duffel coat and wellies on. I asked my dad: ‘What happens if I turn the boat over?’ He replied: ‘Oh, I think you’ve got to stand on the centre-board to get it back. You’ll be all right. See you at the pub.’
And off I set. And, really, that’s where it all began; a pastime which was to develop swiftly into an obsession. Initially, it was a voyage of self-discovery, but in its own way, that contributed to the creation of the sailor I am today. Out at sea, the wind’s straight all the time and makes sailing a lot easier. In a creek, however, the wind fluctuates and moves direction frequently because of the topography of the land around it. That gives you a real natural feel for the effect the wind has on sailing. It means you very quickly learn to adapt to different wind conditions.
When I came home from my primary school there weren’t many other young children living near me to play with, so, quite often, I’d just hoist the sail and set off; just as my contemporaries throughout the world would take a ball out to play. It was so much fun for me to go out sailing right there on my doorstep. It was my release.
That first outing went fine. It was not always so. Once, about a year after I was given my Optimist, I was sailing around on my own, I went to tack, and my foot became tangled in the toe strap (the webbing under which you hook your feet when sitting out) and the mainsheet (the rope attached to the boom which is used to trim the mainsail). I couldn’t move across the boat, and it capsized on top of me, with my foot still trapped. It was quite scary. There was a little air pocket underneath the upturned boat and I was there for several minutes. Fortunately, an older boy in his boat arrived, saw that I was in trouble, jumped on my boat and brought it upright. His name was Paul Pullen, and he and his brother, Matt, would become really good friends of mine. I’d have probably been fine, but it taught me a lesson. And, even today, over twenty years on, I’m still learning them.
All this time my father, Roddy, had taken more than a normal paternal interest. He had been a big-boat sailor, who had been skipper of Second Life in the first Whitbread Round the World race (now known as the Volvo Ocean Race) of 1973–4. Today there are several such ocean challenges open to sailors. Not then. This was something new entirely, and great excitement amongst sailors accompanied the announcement that Whitbread, the brewing company, and the British Royal Naval Sailing Association were collaborating to sponsor the first crewed, global yacht race. The original course was designed to follow the route of the square riggers, which had carried cargo around the world during the nineteenth century.
Some of the skippers were, inevitably, highly experienced men of the sea, and none more so than Chay Blyth, a British Army sergeant who, in 1966, had rowed the Atlantic with Captain John Ridgway in a six-metre dory. Also, two years before that first Whitbread, he had become the first person to sail non-stop westwards around the world aboard the twenty-one-metre ketch British Steel. In that first Whitbread he skippered Great Britain II, funded by Bahamian philanthropist ‘Union’ Jack Hayward.
But many were keen amateurs, with only limited experience of offshore sailing. My father was one of those, and he had formed a syndicate with his brother-in-law Ian Butterworth and found twelve paying passengers to take their chartered Ocean 71 around the course. Everyone paid £3,000, and the entire project cost £40,000.
My sailing connections with the race don’t end there. My godfather, Les Williams, a former naval yachtsman, who with Robin Knox-Johnston had won the 1970 Round Britain Race, was skipper of the UK’s Burton Cutter, which at twenty-four metres was the biggest yacht in the fleet. Les also had a young Kiwi in his crew called Peter Blake who would go on to become one of the most successful and respected sailors of all time.
My mother had originally planned to take part too, as cook on Second Life – until fate intervened. My parents had always thought they couldn’t have children, but a month before the race started, she found herself pregnant for the first time. While my father was at sea, she gave birth to my sister, Fleur. In hindsight, perhaps it was a good thing that she didn’t make it. It would have been an arduous ordeal.
But a total of seventeen yachts and 167 crew did start that first race of 27,500 nautical miles, setting out from Portsmouth on 8 September 1973. Around 3,000 spectator boats were there at the start. Dad and his crew not only finished, but were seventh overall, which was a magnificent achievement.
Three years after Fleur was born, I made my entrance on 5 February 1977. I was born in Macclesfield, in the area south of Manchester from which both my parents hailed. My father was from near Knutsford and my mother from Wilmslow. My father had just taken charge of his family’s business. Originally, it had been a medium-sized company, manufacturing wire fences. When my dad became involved, they diversified and started making all kinds of wooden products: kitchen tabletops, spade handles, right down to those old wooden rulers you used to get in stationers. He had been involved in the business earlier but went off and concentrated on sailing for around five years, before returning to take over the business from his father. My grandmother, grandfather, uncle and aunt on his side also had a share in the company.
My parents had met at school, and got married when my mum was 19. My dad was two years older. They are not too far off celebrating their golden wedding. They have always got on really well and my sister and I were very fortunate to have parents who enjoyed each other’s company and were really committed to having a happy family life.
My grandfather on my father’s side once started tracing the family tree. He went as far back as finding out that our ancestors were Scottish, and were all hanged for stealing sheep on the south side of the border. He stopped there. He probably got a bit disillusioned by that stage. I saw a lot of him and my grandmother at the family business as I used to hang around the yard some Saturdays.
On my mother’s side, my grandfather was a Spitfire pilot in the Second World War. He was based at RAF Ringwood, south of Manchester. I used to love sitting with him, and listening to stories about his sorties. He achieved a notoriety in the war. There was an order that attacks should not include religious sites, such as churches or cathedrals. On one mission, his squadron was attacking Cologne, and he managed to damage the city’s cathedral, getting himself into a huge amount of trouble in the process. My great-grandfather on my mother’s side made a name for himself as an inventor.
My elder sister Fleur has two young children, Tansy and Oscar. They are lovely children and I really enjoy spending time with them. They are just starting to get into sailing which is great and has already led to a few amusing situations. Fleur is married to a Dutchman, Jerome Pels, who is the Secretary General of the International Sailing Federation. So, as you can imagine, we have a few heated conversations about the world of sailing around the dinner table.
As a young child, the Cheshire countryside was my playground. We lived in a nice house adjoining a working farm. A friend and I would often run over to the farm and play in the hay bales. We would always be annoying the farmer by constantly knocking over his neatly stacked bales. And worse. One day, we got into a tractor and somehow managed to start it, including the large crop-cutting blades. Fortunately it didn’t move off, but we couldn’t work out how to stop it. I had to slink back home and come clean to my mother who demanded that I should find the farmer immediately, and apologise.
I have wonderful memories of that time, although as the ‘baby’ of the family I tended to suffer most when I was left with my sister and our cousin – my mother’s brother’s daughter – called Sorell, who was four or five years older than me. She had a highly vivid imagination and, when she came round to play, got us doing some weird and wacky things. Once my parents and aunt and uncle were sitting in the dining room, having a drink, when polythene bags came floating down past the window. It was suspiciously quiet upstairs, so my mum investigated and found me – I was about 2 at the time – perched on the windowsill with my sister and cousin about to push me out of the window with a polythene bag under each arm. They thought the bags would act like parachutes! Fortunately my mum got hold of me before I took my first flying lesson.
Overall, though, I can honestly say they were really happy times. I was very fortunate. You read of some sports personalities who, in part, achieve what they do almost as a consequence of troubled childhoods. For boxers, the ring has often been a means of escaping the poverty and deprivation of broken homes. It was never like that for me. My parents were always supportive of my sister and me. They were fine role models; good people. The only problems I ever encountered, as I will explain later, were at school. From the age of 3, I attended a good independent preschool called Terra Nova, with small classes, about five miles away. I never took to it that well, but made lots of friends there.
It did not take long for my parents to introduce me to sailing. I was 3 or 4 when my parents bought a small cruising boat which was kept at Holyhead, a two- or three-hour drive away. They’d take my sister, Fleur, and I with them and we went on trips across the Irish Sea or around Conway. That was my introduction to sailing. Dad says that I was immediately fascinated by water. I don’t remember much about it, though it always seemed pretty rough on the Irish Sea.
By the time I was 6 or 7, my father had bought a classic yawl, which is a two-masted craft, from a member of the Guinness family. It was a McGruer, a beautiful boat, but was in a really bad state of repair when he got it. We took her down the Manchester Ship Canal to a boatyard at Northwich where he spent two years rebuilding her. He worked on the project every weekend. The skills required came easily to him. The business he was involved in meant he had a woodworking background. He did an amazing job; restoring the yawl as it had been in its heyday. It was quite beautiful when they finished it.
Dad retired quite young, in his late 40s. I guess he was entitled to do so, because he had worked seriously hard throughout his life. We didn’t see him that much during the week. He’d left in the morning by the time we’d got up. He wouldn’t get home until around eight o’clock most of the time and, by then, my sister and I were in bed. That’s why it was great when he had time for us, and that was mainly at weekends, although he also worked most Saturdays, too.
We had moved from Cheshire to Cornwall when I was 7. Dad had decided to sell the family business. That industry was dying a slow death because of the emergence of plastics and he decided to get out of it. We had some family friends who lived down in the West Country and we’d spent a few summers on holiday there. They’d seen a cottage for sale and had fallen in love with it. For my parents, it was the ideal setting. In addition, Fleur and I were both young enough that we could switch schools without too much disruption to our education. So, my parents went for it. I’m exceptionally glad they did. At the time, I was thrilled by the prospect of moving to live by the sea.
I was always fascinated by the water and the way boats moved in it. I didn’t have to be out sailing. We also had a rowing boat, and I just enjoyed going out and sitting in the middle of the creek and watching the world go by. It was an environment I loved. I made friends who lived around the Fal Estuary, and there was one particular boy who lived on the other side of the creek. We both had dinghies. Sometimes we’d meet in the middle. Or I’d sail across to his house, or he’d come to mine. Those were really happy times.
Would I have had the career I did, and been as successful as I was, if we hadn’t moved to Cornwall? Who can say. It wasn’t as if my parents said ‘Oh, Ben’s going to be a future Olympic champion. Let’s move to Cornwall because that would be good for his sailing.’ I was just really lucky that was the way it worked out.
I said earlier that I didn’t have a particularly privileged background. Yet, I could do what only a few young boys could: I could sail whenever the fancy took me, or maybe take out a rowing boat or motorboat. That gave me a wonderful sense of freedom. Even if you lost a rudder or something fell off you’d eventually drift into the shoreline.
I have to laugh when I recall those years. When you think how mollycoddled kids are today, with all the concern for children’s health and safety, and here I was, at 8 or 9, sailing around on my own in my Optimist; even sometimes in the dark. I suspect that, nowadays, parents would be highly concerned if that was happening. I was quite lucky. My parents placed a lot of trust in me and were quite content to let me go off and sail.
In terms of what I do now, being on the water from a very early age gave me confidence. Also there was the fact that people we met on family trips would talk about sailing, and even maybe racing. Even at that age, 7 or 8, I was intrigued. I guess it gets ingrained in you a bit and I enjoyed hearing the stories of local fishermen and racing sailors, guys like Timmy Bailey. It was something I got to love more and more as I got older.
Meanwhile my dad was luxuriating in his idea of paradise. He could now sail the yawl he had so lovingly restored around the Cornwall coast, and from so close to home, too. We’d do many short trips, like sailing from Falmouth round to Fowey. It was an enjoyable social scene, and my parents made many friends who had boats. We also had a lot of family holidays. One time, to my great excitement, we sailed over to the Brittany coast for around three weeks.
We had some pretty hairy moments; particularly the first night, trying to get into the harbour. Dad was a pretty good navigator, but a heavy fog had descended. These, remember, were the days before GPS navigation. There were strong tides and it was very quiet. Too quiet. Suddenly the fog lifted and, from nowhere, a lighthouse just loomed up before us, and we were confronted by some nasty-looking rocks. Miraculously, Dad somehow managed to negotiate a tiny gap into a lagoon in front of the lighthouse. My mum, who was a good sailor and normally enjoyed it all, just about freaked out. We were still in a precarious position. After a while, I said to my dad: ‘How are we going to get out of here?’ ‘Well,’ he replied patiently, ‘I think we’ll just turn around and go back the way we came in.’ It probably wasn’t all that dangerous a situation but at that age I remember being in awe of how calm my dad was in such a precarious position.
A year or so later, however, we were not so fortunate. Much nearer home we were shipwrecked. It was a traumatic episode for everyone but especially my father as he had to watch his pride and joy wrecked before his eyes. Yet, the incident indirectly kick-started my sailing career.
One of our outings was to sail from our home, round past Falmouth and down to the Helford River which is a really beautiful spot. It’s about twenty miles, a three- or four-hour sail. Normally, we’d set off in the morning, stop and have lunch there and return in the afternoon. One Easter, we started out with myself, my sister, my parents and a friend of theirs, Brian Bellingham, who was a naval helicopter pilot and also a very good sailor, plus a school friend of mine.
Conditions were fine, and we reached the Helford River. It’s quite narrow, only about half a mile across at the entrance. My dad went to start the engine, but there was no response. He realised that he couldn’t steer, either. We’d run over a lobster pot. Because it was a classic yacht the keel was much longer than normal. The rudder was an extension of the keel and the propeller was located between the two. The lobster pot had wrapped itself around the propeller.
We couldn’t use the engine or the rudder, so we couldn’t steer, and we still had all the sails up. We couldn’t get them down quickly enough. I could see these rocks approaching, and I remember my dad and Brian desperately trying to trim sails in an attempt to turn the boat. I was trying to help too, as best as you can at 8 or 9, by trying to wind in one of the sails. We didn’t make it and the boat smashed into the rocks and became caught in a gully. I recall being amazed at how calm my father was in the situation.
Having got my sister, myself, my friend and my mum off the boat, on to the rocks and on to a pathway to safety, Dad and Brian got the sails down and then tried really hard to clear the propeller and get it off the rocks. If he’d been lucky it would have bounced off them. But these were jagged rocks. A fibreglass boat would have been smashed to pieces. This wooden craft was strong, and remained in one piece, but it was fatally damaged.
We set off some flares and called a lifeboat, but that took about an hour and a half to come round from Falmouth. They dragged the boat off the rocks, and tried to get pumps on to it in time but the boat went straight to the bottom. It was really a terrible sight. Dad had put so much effort into it. He’d spent two years solidly restoring it, although boats like that you never stop working on. They take a lot of maintenance.
They were able to salvage the yawl a couple of weeks later, but the problem was that it had been so badly damaged. You have a stem which is basically the spine of the boat to which all the ribs are joined. That was broken. It effectively means the whole boat has to be rebuilt. He just didn’t have the will for it.
Dad has owned a number of boats since then. Soon after, he bought a racing boat, a Lightwave 395, a 40ft cruiser-racer, and did a double-handed Round Britain Race with a good friend, Peter Visick. It was his way of getting over that experience, and around ten years ago, he bought a Folk Boat, a very small classic boat designed to sleep two or three people. I had a few adventures on her myself, cruising around, running into rocks and all sorts.
I took it for a few expeditions with my girlfriend at the time. One Easter, I received very clear instructions about negotiating Gillan Harbour which is just round the coast from Helford River, near where my parents now live and where the boat was moored. A buoy was marking a rock. I had clear instructions about which side of the buoy to go to clear the rock. Which we did – and still managed to run aground.
I was down below getting a sail and pretty much headbutted the mast as the boat stopped on the rock. I cursed and ran on deck to give the poor girl on the helm a hard time for not paying any attention to what I had said. I then grabbed the helm and proceeded to do exactly the same thing again, much to my girlfriend’s amusement and my embarrassment as we had now become stuck on the rock. A local boatman had to come out and tow us off the rock and for some reason he had pretty good chuckle about it.
But to return to the sinking of my father’s yawl, it was a bit of a news story in Cornwall, with Dad having competed in the Whitbread. We had a phone call from a woman named Jill Slater, who’d read about the sinking. She and her husband, Dr Phil Slater, a GP, who was a major local sailing figure, had started a coaching clinic for youngsters – including their own children, Matthew and Verity, who were a similar age to me – at the nearby sailing club, in Mylor Churchtown. Hearing that I had an Optimist, she invited me to take my boat down there and learn how to sail. I didn’t require a second invitation.
Chapter 3
From the Boys in the Barracudas to the Best of British
WITHIN A YEAR, Dr Phil and Jill Slater had gone out and encouraged around forty of us youngsters down to the Restronguet Sailing Club. That was based about half an hour away from my home by boat. It was all organised in a child-friendly fashion. We were split into three groups. The beginners, just learning to sail, were called the Parrots. It was designed to be fun, with follow-the-leader expeditions, and prizes at the end. Maybe there’d be a picnic. Jill, who possessed an ideal manner about her with young children, coached the Parrots.
The Barracudas group was a little bit more serious, and was aimed to get the boys and girls into racing. They were coached by a fellow called Eddie Shelton. He was the father of a good friend of mine, Jamie Shelton. Eddie was a good sailor, who contributed a lot to our sailing education. By trade, he was a marine engineer, and had quite a smart speedboat. One day, he took Jamie and me out on it, and in Falmouth Harbour we were rewarded by the spectacle of two 12m yachts sailing past us. They turned out to be the America’s Cup boats, Victory 83, and the B boat, owned by the entrepreneur Peter de Savary. At that time, de Savary’s British America’s Cup team was based out at Port Falmouth. For us Optimist kids, that was an awesome experience.
I thought ‘That’s great. I’d really love to do that one day.’ I was only about 12 at the time. I don’t know if it was remarkable prescience or not, but Eddie told me: ‘One day, you’ll be doing that.’ I’ve never forgotten those words. I laughed off the observation. But he was persistent. He said: ‘Yes. You keep going, you’ll get there.’ That was quite an inspiration, so early on, and quite a poignant moment. It was a prospect that would long fuel my imagination.
The elite at our sailing club were the Aces. Phil Slater was in charge of them. That was deadly serious, all about racing, with the aim of trying to encourage the very best to compete nationally. The Slaters, who still live in Falmouth, did so much for sailing in the area. My early years would be very reliant on Phil’s expertise and advice.
I started off with the Parrots, sailing my wooden boat. Then I progressed quickly to the Barracudas. Even in my slow old boat I started beating guys who were in the Aces. In time, Phil told my dad that I was doing really well, but I needed a better boat because mine was too heavy, and in racing, a heavy dinghy is a slow dinghy. The only advantage was that everybody got out of my way, because if I hit another boat it could cause serious damage. And I had plenty of collisions.
Sailing has always brought the competitive instincts out of me, maybe sometimes to excess. Though I enjoyed sports like football and cricket, I had never been particularly brilliant at them. But sailing was something I really enjoyed. Even early on, I sensed I had a flair for it. I was determined to do well in the sport, and it made me super-competitive. I simply hated losing; even as a child. I just refused to be beaten by anyone.
As youngsters learning to sail and race we were lucky it was such a nice club, with so many well-intentioned adults who helped us. In part that was because Phil was such a prominent, high-profile member of the club, and was really trying to do something with the youngsters, ensuring the rest of the club really embraced us. There were always lots of experienced sailors who would answer your questions. And this being Cornwall, they were always pretty laid-back.
My dad would also get involved from time to time. He had never been a dinghy sailor, but he picked up things as we went along. At mealtimes, we’d chat about the racing and sailing. We’d both speak to Phil about what I needed to do better.
It took me a while to get the hang of things. When I started out, still in the old wooden Optimist, I wasn’t exactly reckless, but I’d go out in any conditions even though I didn’t really know what I was doing. They had a couple of rescue boats down at the club. Every time they saw me coming down, the guy who was in charge of them would apparently observe: ‘Oh, no. It’s that Ainslie kid again. We’ll have to get the rescue boats ready.’ I’d just set off with the wind behind me, and I wouldn’t know how to get back. I’d reach the other side of the estuary, it’d be blowing hard and I’d get stuck. They had to come out, pick me up and tow me back in. This happened continually for about a month.
Fortunately, there was a really nice guy around called Terry White, whose son had been a very good Optimist sailor before I started. Eventually, he said: ‘I’m going to have to show you how to do this. We can’t keep launching the boat and coming out after you.’ As it turned out, it wouldn’t be the last time that I’ve needed rescuing in my sailing career.
I wasn’t a total novice about the technicalities. I understood the basics of that from the big-boat sailing I’d done with my family. Obviously I knew that a boat needs to tack into the wind. But there’s some big differences with dinghies. You can turn a dinghy over and capsize it. You can’t do that with a yacht. I had to learn all that: how to use your body weight to balance the boat, and to react more with the waves. All that took a little bit of getting used to.
Eventually, a couple of years after I started, my dad bought me a much lighter, fibreglass boat so that I could race effectively. It had been owned by a girl who had won the national championships a couple of years previously. It wasn’t brand new, but it was a really good boat, well set up. The transition was immediate. Suddenly I was winning races. Having been in a heavy slow boat, once I got into that, I was off like a rocket.
We trained on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and raced on Sunday afternoons in a club series of fleet races. We had two races which lasted about an hour each. To me it felt like the most competitive racing of any club anywhere. Even by my standards today, some of the racing we did then was fiercer than most of what I’ve encountered since.
By then I was in the top group, where two other boys stuck out from the crowd: David Lenz and Darren Williams. We three were so into our sailing; we’d read all the books, we knew who all the sailing personalities were, people like the Kiwi Russell Coutts, who has won the America’s Cup as a skipper three times, and is, arguably, the world’s finest yachtsman. He and his compatriot Chris Dickson – New Zealand produces top sailors like they do the world’s best rugby players – were the guys we wanted to emulate.
David, Darren and I would take each other out and be super-aggressive, because that’s how we’d heard Dickson and Coutts were. We thought that’s the way you needed to be. It got us all used to pushing the opposition really hard.
We travelled to events elsewhere in the country, though logistically, because we were in Cornwall, that was not always easy and there was heavy reliance on parental support. We were necessarily quite insular. We only did four or five events – regattas – a year. So, we made the racing within our own club count. It was really focussed. It meant a lot more to us.
Phil Slater identified the youngsters who were doing well, and tried to encourage them to be even more ambitious and compete in national events. That’s how I ended up travelling up to the national championships at Largs, near Glasgow, in 1988. Phil had a word with my dad and recommended that I enter. It was an astute suggestion. It represented a dramatic improvement in such a relatively short time, particularly considering that I had no experience of racing in a big fleet. I was used to competing with no more than ten rivals. Suddenly, here I was amongst 150.