Sir Ben Ainslie interview: ‘Cringeworthy’ temper tantrums, INEOS court case and a SailGP reset

Editor’s note: This story is part of The Athletic’s coverage of SailGP, an international sailing competition that has been likened to Formula 1 on water. Follow SailGP here.

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Sir Ben Ainslie has had a lot going on.

In April, he ran the London Marathon for the first time, an experience he said left his body “in bits”. In June, incendiary claims emerged from the legal dispute between Ainslie’s Athena Racing team and INEOS, his former financial backer, over the boat built for the last America’s Cup. And now he is preparing for his home SailGP race, in Portsmouth, as his British team attempt to reset their season after a promising start fell away in recent races.

“It’s been an up-and-down season for us,” Ainslie, the most successful sailor in Olympic history, told The Athletic. “As you can see from the results, we finished last in one of the events, and the team is really striving to try to get greater consistency.”

After winning the championship last season, and leading in the early stages this year, expectations in the team are still running high. It was at the same point in the season a year ago when the British really stepped up and went on to dominate the second half of 2025. Ainslie is hoping for a similar rise in form this weekend.

The most recent four events were bookended by two mishaps for the British crew. In Rio de Janeiro, the British inexplicably found themselves in last place, which was followed by two not-so-bad performances in Bermuda and New York, but then came a crash in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The April weekend in Rio was irredeemably awful. Things just didn’t seem to go their way, but in the data-driven world of SailGP, that’s far too wishy-washy an explanation for what was Britain’s worst result since their F50 boat hit the rocks at the Copenhagen Sail Grand Prix in August 2022.

“Anytime you have a bad result like that, of course there is concern,” Ainslie, whose Olympic career yielded four gold medals and one silver, said.

“There’s got to be a focus on the issues: ‘What led to that?’ and trying to make sure that you don’t just look for excuses or turn a blind eye. But it’s also about the jeopardy in SailGP. You have to expect a bad result from time to time.”

There is a team, however, who seemingly have a golden touch this season. The dominant Flying Roos from Australia and fierce rivals of the British. On the final day of Rio, when driver Dylan Fletcher could barely get the British boat off the line, Tom Slingsby drove the Australians to four straight race wins, a level of dominance and consistency not achieved before on the tight, congested race circuits of SailGP.

Fourth in Bermuda was followed by second in New York, finishing oh-so-close to the Aussies in a hard-fought final. But then the recovery hit the buffers in Halifax, that hard-won momentum vanishing in a momentary loss of control through a routine maneuver and subsequent crash during the warm-up session.

Fletcher told The Athletic it was a lack of coordination between the team members — “absolutely operator error” — as they took the boat through a high-speed jibing maneuver in stronger winds than the forecast had predicted. Normally, this wouldn’t have been a problem but for the extra stress on the equipment due to using the biggest wing rig, the fragile 27.5m wing in conjunction with the light wind foils.

When there’s so little practice time available, especially on unfamiliar equipment like the giant 27.5m wing, it’s understandable that mistakes happen. Yet, it was costly all the same.

“It was obviously totally self-inflicted,” said Ainslie. “The mistake looked relatively innocuous, but it obviously wasn’t, and ultimately it took the team out of the event. It was really frustrating for everybody. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it was a big mistake. The team put their hands up, accepted that, and moved on.”

One of the unique aspects of SailGP is that all teams have access to every other team’s data, including the recordings of the audio chat on the boats during racing. Sailors from other teams have noticed that the comms on the British boat have been more erratic, less succinct than last season.

Perhaps it’s partly due to the departure of wing trimmer Iain ‘Goobs’ Jensen who had been a longstanding member of the British setup but switched allegiances to join his fellow Australians.

It’s unlikely to be a coincidence that Jensen joining Slingsby’s crew has been a contributory factor in Australia’s runaway success this season. Not that Jensen’s replacement, Olympic gold medallist Stu Bithell, is any make-weight.

However, Ainslie did acknowledge the shortcomings in the onboard comms. “If you speak to anyone on the team, they would also be the first to say that, for whatever reason, that’s not been as good as it was last season,” he said. “It’s a big area of focus to work on.”

Ainslie admits he has been taken aback by what has come out of his own mouth in the heat of battle. In his racing days, Ainslie was notorious for letting his temper get the better of him.

“Hearing it back, it’s always amusing — or cringeworthy — depending on where you sit. When you listen back to those recordings, you think, ‘Did I really say that?’ or ‘Is that really going to help us get across the finish line any quicker?’ One hundred percent no.

“It happens in all sports; it’s part of the development. We always say communication is absolutely critical. That’s one of the great things with SailGP, that you’ve got that data, you’ve got that audio feedback, and the ability for the coaches to really get into the detail of what was said.”

The on-board audio is just one of many aspects of being involved in the goldfish bowl of SailGP. After spending most of his career working hard in a sport that barely registers any level of attention in the wider world, Ainslie welcomes the brighter — but also harsher — spotlight that this seven-year-old league is shining on sailboat racing.

“For sailing, and for all sports now, to be commercially successful, you have to open the doors. Formula 1 is the best example of that. So whether you like it or not, really, you don’t have any choice.

“Obviously, certain individuals are more attuned to it and much better at presenting themselves and communicating than others, and we need to make sure they’ve got the support around them to make them feel comfortable with that and create the right environment. But it’s no longer an option. It’s absolutely critical for any elite sport or any sports team to be successful from a commercial perspective.”

From being just a great solo sailor in his Olympic days, Ainslie has had to turn himself into much more than that: a businessman, a communicator, a leader. “By nature, I’m more of an introvert than an extrovert. It’s been a long process for me. As you mature, you do change subtly. Definitely, I’ve had to embrace that side of it, and I completely get that it’s fundamental to the commercial success of leagues or the sports teams that you’re involved with.”

Bar the road bumps in Rio and Halifax, mostly the British SailGP program is foiling along nicely. The same cannot be said of GB1, the new brand name for Ainslie’s fourth assault on the America’s Cup, regarded as the pinnacle of international sailing.

Following a very public and increasingly acrimonious falling out with Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the owner of chemicals giant INEOS who bankrolled Ainslie’s two previous Cup campaigns, this is a level of limelight Ainslie could do without.

Ratcliffe’s INEOS Racing Ltd is suing Ainslie’s firm, Athena Racing Ltd, at the High Court in London, claiming ownership of the 75ft boat, the hi-tech AC75 called Britannia, which Ainslie steered in the Barcelona 2024 America’s Cup, beating all the other challenger teams but ultimately losing out 7-2 to the defending team from New Zealand in the America’s Cup Match.

While Ainslie’s designers, engineers and boatbuilders are making extensive upgrades to the AC75 for next year’s Cup in Naples, Ratcliffe wants to prise Britannia from Ainslie’s grasp. Ratcliffe claims he was a co-owner of the team; Ainslie says Ratcliffe was never an owner, only a sponsor, and therefore has no claim on the boat.

“I’ve got a lot of confidence that we will be racing the boat that we raced in the last America’s Cup,” Ainslie said. “I know there’s been a lot of conjecture about that. I’m really mindful that I don’t want to go into detail around the situation in (with) INEOS; I want to try and look forward, not backward. Looking forward, I’m very confident that we’ll be on the start line with the boat that we raced in the last America’s Cup.

“There’s always adversity in sports and in a sports career — ups and downs and challenges — and I always like to think I’d still step up to a challenge, step up and take it on. And I have to say the team has done a fantastic job staying focused on what’s important.”

For someone who has already achieved so much, Ainslie does harbour further dreams beyond winning the America’s Cup.

The Jules Verne Trophy is awarded to the boat that sails non-stop fastest around the world. At the start of the year the French offshore veteran Thomas Coville sailed Sodebo Ultim 3, his 32-metre trimaran, 28,315 nautical miles around the world to set a new record of 40 days, 10 hours, 45 minutes, and 50 seconds.

Ainslie dreams of taking on that challenge one day.

“I just like the simplicity of the challenge: non-stop around the world. Something about that appeals to me,” he said. “I’ve done a little bit of offshore racing, nowhere near enough to say I have any level of experience to know what is going on or even have a chance of getting into the equation, but getting around the world… something about it appeals to me.

“My dad competed in the first-ever around-the-world race back in 1973, and I grew up on stories of this amazing adventure sailing around the world. So there is an attraction there.

“I’ve done some offshore racing and offshore sailing with my parents. But the Jules Verne is not something I’ve looked at seriously yet. Who knows… I’m always up for a challenge, but right now, we’ve got plenty going on with the America’s Cup and SailGP. So let’s work on that first.”