Close to the Wind by Ben Ainslie

Author:Ben Ainslie
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Autobiography, Sailing, Non-Fiction, Sports, Olympics, Biography
ISBN: 9780224082945
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2009-10-12T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Fired by Adversity to Athens Gold

The Laser had been good for me, but as I looked ahead to Athens I decided to make the transition to the more technically complex and demanding Finn class.

Both are single-handed classes, with one sail and similar hull shapes. But the Finn is a much heavier boat, and it takes a heavier guy to sail it. You need to be around 90-100kg, while to sail the Laser the weight range is about 76-81kg. Wherever you go in the world, the Laser is exactly the same. The Finn can have variations in design, within very tight tolerances. You can design different hulls, foils and rigs. In other words, you can change the set-up of the boat which you can’t with the Laser. It brings a whole new technical aspect to racing.

I thought that was important. I thought it was a change I needed to make at this stage in my career to be successful in the sport. My good fortune, when I made the transition, was having David Howlett, nicknamed ‘Sid’, who had coached Iain Percy to gold in 2000 in the Finn, to prepare me. He was also known as the ‘medal-maker’ because of his prowess as a coach.

For me, Howlett, a former Olympic Finn sailor himself, was the guru when it came to the technical nuances of the Finn dinghy. He was always open to new ideas – even from completely different sports. A huge Gunners fan, he paid a visit, with Royal Yachting Association chief executive Rod Carr, to Arsenal’s then new training facility, and spoke with Arsène Wenger about what both sports could learn from each other.

Sid was so fanatical about Arsenal that, at one of the sports awards, he insisted that I get him Patrick Vieira’s autograph. Sheepishly I went up to the Arsenal midfielder and captain, shoving pen and paper in front of him with the old excuse, actually true on this occasion, that I wanted the autograph for someone else. He dropped the pen and as we both bent down for it we managed to headbutt each other. I thought it was quite amusing and laughed that he got far worse abuse from Roy Keane. I don’t think he got the joke and went off rubbing his head.

I arrived back from New Zealand and the America’s Cup adventure in January 2002, and got straight into the new boat. I went round to Sid’s house. He talked me through the Finn and what it was about, and we then went down to his local sailing club in Warsash, near Southampton, where there was an old boat of Iain Percy’s floating around. We spent a couple of days going through how to set the boat up, and what was important. Then I got into this craft, and just started sailing around on my own for a couple of weeks.

Meantime Sid helped me get hold of a good second-hand boat, and a decent, soft rig, because I was still quite light for the boat.

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