SailJuice Blog

Ben Ainslie has just won his fourth Finn European Championship after an extraordinary week of drama. Those words ‘drama’ and ‘Ben Ainslie’ just shouldn’t appear in the same sentence. This guy is so good, he should be winning these regattas at a stroll. Such is his superiority in the Finn class, it always makes me wonder if he’s really trying when he’s not winning with at least a race to spare.

A bit like his last gasp victory at the Olympic Test Regatta in Qingdao last year, Ainslie had it all to do, going into the Medal Race today. He was 8 points adrift of Guillaume Florent, the Frenchman who has been the surprise leader of this regatta for much of the week. Eight points, or four places (in the double-scoring Medal Race), in a 10-boat fleet is a… Read the rest

Ben Ainslie won his fifth Finn Gold Cup in Melbourne, after finishing second in the Medal Race. But the reigning Olympic Champion said this was his toughest win of the five.

The Brit already held the world record for the number of wins in this long established and legendary Olympic class; well ahead of Paul Elvstrom (two wins), Willi Kuhweide, Jorg Bruder, Lasse Hjortnaes, Freddy Loof, who all had three wins.

And he has Olympic gold medals in both the Laser class (2000) and Finn (2004).

Ainslie finished just a wave behind British team mate Ed Wright in the medal race, which is restricted to the top ten sailors after eight races in the 82-boat fleet, but well ahead of New Zealander Dan Slater, who had been only a point behind him going into the medal race.

A… Read the rest

While the lead in the 470 Worlds has been swinging around from one team to the next, Dan Slater has been at the top of the board since day one of the Finn Gold Cup, when he won both heats.

However, yesterday Ben Ainslie (pictured above) claimed a psychological advantage in passing the Kiwi on the finish line, to get ahead by one point before tomorrow’s Medal Race. With Pieter Jan Postma climbing to 3rd and Jonas Hoegh-Christensen in 4th position after a 9th in today’s race, the top four contenders are within 10 points going into tomorrow’s Medal race. It will be a four man battle for the title.

The reigning Olympic Champion, tenth at the top mark, gradually gained places. Turning 5th onto the run, under Oscar flag allowing for free pumping, Ainslie stayed close behind Slater… Read the rest

A long time ago, if memory serves me correctly, a young Kiwi sailor called Dan Slater beat a young Brit called Ben Ainslie to the ISAF Youth World Championship. That was almost 15 years ago, in Laser Radials. Now the same two sailors – a little older, wiser and somewhat heavier – are battling it out at the top of the leaderboard in the Finn Gold Cup in Melbourne.

Slater (pictured above) had a scorcher of a start to the regatta at Black Rock Sailing Club, winning both the first heats in lighter winds. Yesterday was the first big breeze day, and the top of the table is tightening up.

The two big gainers were Jonas Hoegh Christensen (DEN) and Pieter Jan Postma (NED). Postma stormed up the charts to fourth overall, with a stunning 1,2 scoreline in the… Read the rest

I caught up with Ben Ainslie last week during the Sail Melbourne regatta. At the time, he had just moved into the lead, but Ed Wright was still hard on his heels. As it turned out, Ben stretched away on the final days to win the regatta by a massive margin, even though he said he wasn’t that focused on his performance there.

For Ben, the trip to Australia was all about Sydney International Regatta (where he needed to prove his mettle against Ed for British selection to the Olympics) and now the Worlds which start in the next few hours. If he can win in Melbourne, it will be his fifth Gold Cup victory.

Of course the other job which Ben is holding down is that of skipper of Team Origin, not the most onerous job right now,… Read the rest

Ben Ainslie has taken round one of his showdown against Ed Wright in the Battle of Britain. The four-time Finn Gold Cup winner dominated the Sydney International Regatta in a mix of conditions, comprehensively beating last year’s World Champion Jonas Hoegh-Christensen from Denmark into second place, with reigning World Champion Rafael Trujillo scraping into third.

The Spaniard finished on equal points with new boy in the class, a 20-year-old Brit called Giles Scott who missed out on a medal after the countback system came into play.

Ainslie’s selection rival Ed Wright had his moments, but not the consistency, and managed just 5th overall. The reigning Olympic Champion has never been happy about having to do a selection trial, a point he emphasised earlier today. “I’d hope that with this win and with the results from China this year and… Read the rest

Whatever has been said about the concept of the Medal Race – and it has taken plenty of stick over the past year – it threw up some incredibly nailbiting conclusions in the Olympic Test Regatta in Qingdao.

On the final day, Paul Goodison (photo courtesy of OnEdition) scored a lowly 7th out of 10 in the Laser Medal Race, just holding off the 8th placed boat by three seconds. Goodison clinched gold by a point – and those vital three seconds – from Sweden’s Rasmus Myrgren.

On the previous day, Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes potentially through away their 49er gold medal when they hit the windward mark while lying in fourth. Taking a 360 penalty was the last thing they needed in 15 to 18 knots, and a washing machine chop driven by a wind-against-tide scenario. Fortunately that… Read the rest

After a week of little or no wind, Qingdao finally came good for the first set of Medal Races today. With the breeze blowing a thankfully uncharacteristic 15-17 knots, it was a great day for the Brits, and a pretty good one for the Aussies too.

Despite a poor Medal Race for Ben Ainslie, the reigning Olympic Champion picked up right where he left off exactly a year ago, defending his Pre-Olympic title with relative ease. Ainslie went into the final with an 11-point lead over Croatian Ivan Kljakovic Gaspic, but found himself way down the fleet when he recrossed the start line thinking he had jumped the gun.

The Croatian at one stage managed to get enough places between him and the Ainslie to wrest the overall lead away from the Brit, but was overtaken on the final downwind… Read the rest

Ben Ainslie has been selected to represent Great Britain in the Finn class at the 2007 Olympic Test Event in Qingdao next month. This is effectively a wild card entry for the reigning Olympic Champion, who has barely set foot in a Finn since winning last year’s Test Event in China.

He’s had other things to do, what with being Dean Barker’s sparring partner and tune-up helm at Emirates Team NZ in Valencia. So Ainslie by his own confession is rusty. Indeed China last summer is the only time Ainslie has raced the Finn since winning the last of his four back-to-back Gold Cups in Moscow back in 2005.

This news will be disappointing but not altogether surprising for Ed Wright, who won last year’s European Championships, but has struggled to reproduce that form… Read the rest