Sir Ben Ainslie, the most decorated Olympic sailor of all time, will race for the chance to make history when he clashes with veteran Italian skipper Max Sirena in Barcelona today.
The first to win seven races over the next ten days gains the right to challenge defending champions New Zealand for the America’s Cup, the most prestigious prize in sailing and the oldest international trophy in sport.
It is 173 years since Queen Victoria watched the New York Yacht Club upset the natural order of things by trouncing her Royal Yacht Squadron in a race around the Isle of Wight on August 22, 1851.
Since then, the Americans have won the ‘Auld Mug’ 30 times, while New Zealand have won it four times, Switzerland twice and Australia once.
Yet, despite 23 attempts, Britain has yet to get its hands on the trophy, a lasting blemish that has nagged away at four-time Olympic gold medallist Ainslie for years.
Prestige: The America’s Cup taking place in Barcelona is not only a contest between sailors, it is also a battle of egos between some of the richest men on earth
Should the 47-year-old and his team at Ineos Britannia win it, his legacy as the greatest competitive sailor this country has ever produced would surely be secured.
It would also mark a stunning victory for the sports-mad billionaire bankrolling the British challenge – Sir Jim Ratcliffe, founder of global chemicals giant Ineos and co-owner of Manchester United.
For the America’s Cup is also a battle of egos between some of the richest men on earth.
Of the six teams in Barcelona, all are backed by deep-pocketed and ultra-competitive benefactors.
They include Italian-Swiss pharmaceutical magnate Ernesto Bertarelli, for Switzerland’s Alinghi Red Bull Racing and American retail magnate Doug DeVos for NYYC American Magic.
The race series between the Brits and Italians which begins today is no different, pitting two tycoons against each other.
Ratcliffe, 71, is a self-made man raised in a council house in Lancashire who made his estimated £23.5billion fortune in chemicals.
A keen adventurer and marathon runner, he splits his time between homes in Hampshire and Monaco.
He switched his tax status to the principality on the French Riviera in 2020 in a move estimated at the time to save him £4billion.
The big money behind Sirena and his crew at Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli comes courtesy of Patrizio Bertelli, the boss of Prada Group, who married into the glamorous Italian fashion dynasty.
A sailing nut, Bertelli founded Italy’s Luna Rossa team almost 30 years ago, and has already funded four failed bids for the America’s Cup.
Like any self-respecting billionaire, Ratcliffe has a very large boat: his 78.5-metre, £130m mega-yacht the Hampshire II, complete with helipad and a beach club, has been moored alongside the Ineos team base in Barcelona.
But he is not a sailing aficionado and only got involved after meeting Ainslie for a drink in 2018, a few months after Ainslie’s British team fell short at the America’s Cup in Bermuda.
Ratcliffe would later joke that this turned out to be the ‘most expensive gin and tonic in history’ as, four weeks later, he signed a £110million deal to fund Britain’s challenge in Auckland in 2021.
His second tilt this year is unlikely to have been any cheaper. America’s Cup great Dennis Conner has estimated a syndicate will need at least £150million to be in with a fighting chance of winning this year.
What really attracted Ratcliffe, he says, was the unique challenge.
Ratcliffe, who also owns British cycling team the Ineos Grenadiers and a third of the Mercedes Formula 1 motor racing team, has described winning the America’s Cup as right up there with restoring the ailing Red Devils to the top of the Premier League.
Earlier this year, Ineos Group paid more than £1billion for a 25 per cent stake in Manchester United, taking charge of football operations.
Of course, yacht racing and big money have always gone hand in hand.
The America’s Cup is a magnet for high-end sponsors, from Prada to Rolex and Louis Vuitton, owned by LVMH, the luxury goods empire controlled by one of the world’s richest people, Frenchman Bernard Arnault.
This year the challengers’ cup in which teams compete to face the America’s Cup holders has been named the Louis Vuitton Cup.
Luxury Swiss watchmaker Omega has usurped Rolex to become the event’s official timekeeper. And Italian tyre maker Pirelli and the airline Emirates are among the other sponsors.
But long before it became a marketing dream for posh handbags and Swiss watches, the America’s Cup has provided a playground for billionaires who pour vast fortunes into creating teams, designing high-tech boats, and assembling world-class crews.
Winning American crews over the years have been backed by everyone from Wall Street titan John Pierpont Morgan at the turn of the 20th century through to Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison 100 years later.
The latter is estimated to have spent some £560million in five campaigns, two of them successful.
The event has also proved a very effective means of pouring good money down the drain. French tycoon Baron Marcel Bich, who gave the world the Bic biro, made four failed attempts between 1970 and 1980.
Scottish tea merchant Sir Thomas Lipton was also a serial loser, making five failed attempts around the turn of the 20th century.
‘The America’s Cup is a financial black hole,’ says John Bertrand, 77, who led Australia II to the most famous victory in the America’s Cup’s history, 41 years ago today in 1983.
He and his crew beat the New York Yacht Club at Rhode Island in Newport, the first time the Americans had been defeated in the 132 years of the competition, ending the longest winning streak in sport.
He told the Mail: ‘It’s all about the X factor of winning the most prestigious sporting event on Earth. If you win you can press the flesh of any king or queen around the world.’
In the four decades since, funding a team has become an even more expensive hobby, as the technology has become more advanced.
Modern yachts have been likened to Formula 1 racing cars and can travel at 60mph.
The 75-foot carbon-fibre hulled foiling monohull used this year look very different from traditional yachts.
They have no keel and are designed to fly over the top of the water using mechanical arms which move under or outside the boat to provide the leverage they need to stand upright.
In the UK and Ireland, anyone wanting to tune into the race must do so online, on YouTube, Facebook or the event’s official website.
This lack of exposure can rankle with those spending the big bucks. Many in sailing believe the sport has much to learn from Formula 1, which has brought the sport to a much wider audience through the successful Netflix series, Drive to Survive.
Should Sir Ben Ainslie’s crew storm to an historic victory next month, perhaps this will finally fire the imagination of the British public.
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