Sir Ben Ainslie has pledged to bounce back after his dream of returning the America’s Cup to Britain ended with defeat by New Zealand in the Challenger semi-final.
The four-times Olympic champion extracted the positives after his Land Rover BAR team were beaten 5-2 to end their hopes of triumph in Bermuda, a result that will surely lead to a detailed post-mortem.
Ainslie was praised for his ingenuity and charm in spearheading the fundraising to get the £80m project off the ground three years ago, including recruiting blue chip sponsors and £7.5m of taxpayers’ money. Although there were 120 employed on the task in the UK and Bermuda it is Ainslie’s name emblazoned on the boat and he will feel a sense of responsibility now it has ended prematurely.
But the most obvious explanation, said those closest to him, was that the boat simply was not fast enough and by the time that became apparent it was too late. “After all the work he’s put into it over the last two years to get knocked out so quickly is very disappointing but that’s life isn’t it,” Ainslie’s father, Roddy, told the Guardian. “You don’t win everything all the time and no doubt he’ll bounce back in the next month or two.
“He emails every now and then to say how things have been going. He couldn’t have put more into it than he did. The problem has been that the boat just wasn’t as quick as the others.”
Land Rover BAR began Thursday in the north Atlantic knowing they had to win at least two of three races to force the semi-final into a deciding day but could only manage one victory, going down in the first-to-five series.
New Zealand’s boat had been a wreck after it capsized on Tuesday but they made sufficient repairs to progress to the final of the play-offs against either Artemis or SoftBank Team Japan. The New Zealanders’ decision to opt for pedal power – cyclists powering their systems rather than the traditional hand grinders – was controversial but appears to have given them an edge, particularly towards the end of races.
In contrast, despite Ainslie winning most of his starts, Land Rover BAR were left wanting for straight-line speed and were constantly on the pursuit.
Ainslie, who moved his young family to Bermuda to dedicate himself to this race, vowed to continue in pursuit of bringing the America’s Cup back to Britain, a task that will be at least 168 years in the making by the time the next opportunity arises. “I couldn’t be prouder of the team. It has been an amazing journey for us,” he said. “What we’ve achieved now is phenomenal. We may have bowed out of the competition and ultimately failed to bring the America’s Cup home but we knew it was going to be incredibly tough.
“Where this team has come from, particularly in the previous few months, is a huge credit to everyone in the team. We are a very proud British team and we will be back in the America’s Cup.”
He backed plans for the cup to become a biennial event. It is currently held sporadically with the date and venue determined by the previous winner. Martin Whitmarsh, the chief executive of Land Rover BAR, wants to bring more structure to the event and his idea of staging it every two years has been backed by five of the six teams involved, with only New Zealand yet to agree. “It certainly helps, and that’s why we’ve been pivotal in supporting the framework agreement that Martin Whitmarsh has put forward,” said Ainslie.
“It’s a similar situation with Formula One where they are looking for continuity and looking to try and bring more new teams in, reduce costs, so to have someone with Martin’s experience in helping with those negotiations has been fantastic.”
