8 August 2005

Stephen Kirker spoke with Ian Ainslie on Sunday the 26th June just before the last race of Louis Vuitton Act 5. Ian was sailing as tactician in the fleet racing event but had been behind the wheel of RSA-83, the brand new boat for Louis Vuitton Act 4, the match racing event the previous week. Team Shosholoza had a big battle on their hands just controlling the new boat without the use of hydraulics, a set of heavy training sails and the fact that the crew had never sailed her before.

Has it been frustrating having to race on such an under prepared boat?

No it was extremely frustrating. If you compare it to a South African regatta, it would be like going to pick up an L26 lying on the Vaal Dam, that hasn't been sailed in 10 years and then take off all the jib cars and have no control. Just tie them all up and then try to win Lipton Cup. You know, something like that would be an apt comparison. I think…this thing is an adventure so we went out in the best of spirits just to try and make the best of a bad job but it is pretty frustrating by now that every day the boat improves and the guys get additional functions working but there's so many things that aren't working. It is really frustrating because we're actually sailing pretty badly as well because we just can't get the boat around the race course so I would say this is a pretty frustrating time in the programme but, well, the regatta ends today and then the boat will go back in the shed and get sorted out and then we can really start getting the new boat together and then it should be fine.

How well did you cope with RSA-83, bearing in mind it was your first time handling such a large vessel in a match race? (Louis Vuitton Act 4)

Look I'm pretty inexperienced at sailing the big boat in the match races, as you say, and it would have been really helpful to have been able to do at least one dial-up before the first real one! In fact the first gybe we ever did in the boat was across the bow of +39 in the first dial-up so, you know, we really couldn't get the boat going out of the initial dial-up and the acceleration from the dead stop in the pre-start was where we suffered a lot. And then later on, it kind of got better, and we did manage to win one or two starts towards the end so I'm pretty confident that once we just practice for a few days, the characteristic of the boat, how the rudder stalls and when you stop steering the boat off the sails and so on. Once we've got that sorted out we'll obviously be in a much better position to try and compete on the start.

Has the team considered making rudder modifications?

In fact, just before (Act 5), we had a day between the regattas and we chopped off a piece of the rudder at the bottom, because it had a lot of pressure on the wheel. The rudder wasn't quite balanced and so the bottom piece, which sticks further aft; we've chopped that off and the helm feels much lighter now so that's one positive thing and of course, RSA-48, our old boat, had a much bigger rudder so it didn't stall out as quickly. Basically the new boat, with it's smaller rudder, is inherently faster in a straight line but obviously just (takes) a bit more getting used to when you (slow down) at the pre-start. It's all controlled with the sails, the rudder does nothing until you get up to four knots or so, and the rudder takes over again, which is more like the new boat, but obviously takes a bit of getting used to. But I think, as it is now, with the rudder shape changed, it should be no problem.

You were well placed against the Germans in Act 4 and then blew it. How did that come apart?

You know, we were going faster than them in the conditions, which was good for us, considering that our jib was folded round the leech and nothing was really working, but basically we let ourselves down with a poor gybe at the finish. We did a gybe, still about 30 seconds ahead of them and it wasn't a good one: the spinnaker wrapped and they got onto our wind, which was a problem, and then they passed us just at the finish. So it was disappointing but, you know, had we been more organised, we would have been, perhaps 3 minutes ahead and that last gybe wouldn't have made a difference. So all around the race course, we were sailing under optimum and obviously the last gybe let us down. It was the most evident because they passed us at the finishing line, after being behind the whole race. I mean, it's two years to go, we've got two weeks to sort the boat out and then we can start really starting to practice and getting used to manoeuvres, getting used to how the new boat handles, getting all the little systems worked out and then we've got a regatta in about a month and a half in Sweden and then we will be ready so we're looking forward to (that.)

It would be easy to get demoralised but the adversity seems to have been good for the team?

You know, that's what we're finding actually, that no one's dropping their lip. Everyone's pretty disappointed at how the boat is. I think we were used to 48, that everything worked, everything was bullet proof and this is fairy typical. I'm told by experienced people that a new boat takes a long time to get ready and that's what we have to go through and the boat really was three weeks too late for this regatta, to try and get it rushed through. Everyone's positive that after this we'll get the boat in shape, get it sorted out and then we can really start sailing it to its potential. We do feel the boat has a lot of potential. Once we do find our set up correct for the conditions, we go along just fine so we're pretty positive.

How has the fleet racing been?

It's been pretty light, the wind, and we don't have a number one genoa yet because it's set up for the new mast and obviously we're using the second-hand mast, so we're using a number 2 genoa, which is pretty heavy, so we lack a bit of pace as the wind gets down a bit and that is frustrating because if we do get a good start, we hang on to our lane all the way up the beat and then, when it gets a bit lumpy and light we get spat out the back. But as each day goes by, the builders work late into the night to get more things ready and things are being improved all the time so we feel we're definitely on an upward slope.

Why are you using the heavier sails?

In fact we built some very heavy sails out of fateta, which is a more durable material, just for training, and then with having to change masts, we didn't change our racing sails to fit this mast because it's a very temporary thing. We're just going to get through this regatta with the old mast and then fit the new one, so once our new mast is ready to go on, our racing sails will then go onto that new mast. Having to use these sails; they're basically heavier, flatter and have less power so it would normally be used from 12 to 15 knots and we're using it, obviously, from nought to 15 knots, so that's a disadvantage in the lighter range, just lacking power and speed. (In a separate interview, Chris Law who is helping train Team Shosholoza said the difference in power can be as much as 20%)

You've been invited to become a regular on the Swedish Match Tour. How do you feel about that?

One part of our programme that we need to work on is the match racing skills of everyone on the team, starting with myself, being the helmsman in this case. I think with the boats (being) more similar in speed and the race courses being shorter, (there's) going to be more emphasis on the start and you've got to come out of the start in a good position and this is pretty tough with really good guys racing against you, but I think going to be part of the Swedish Match Tour, with all the other Americas Cup teams is an important step because we will get the exposure of racing against them and seeing what their moves are and just becoming familiar with all the tactics and techniques you need in a match race.

What about your approach? Are you going to be experimenting at all?

Actually, when I started sailing a month or two ago on the tour, because I had no standard moves, I would do things that were pretty strange, that the other skippers weren't ready for and sometimes we got away with it and won the start, just because it was so unorthodox but obviously once they see what strange things you're going to do they can counter them, but what we're trying to do now, is actually just learn the basic moves so at every set situation we know what the basic defence and offence are for each movement. After that we can go back to being unorthodox and doing it more by instinct and spur of the moment, but for now we have to learn all the set moves. If you compare it to a football match or a rugby match, it's doing all the basic attack and defence moves correctly first and then you can go and start being innovative again.

Will the crew rotate on the tour?

The boats we use are 40 footer's and you sail five up, including the helmsman who doesn't do much other than steer so it's basically four crew members for a 40 footer, which is quite a bit on, considering the races in the small boats are about 25 minutes long and they consist of a lot of tacks, a lot of gybes and a lot of manoeuvres. So it's really a very strong team effort. If you look at the successful teams; they've been together for upwards of eight years, the same five guys, and then the Americas Cup teams; they also have a core match racing team so it is important to have some consistency but with Chris Law being our coach for example, in a few weeks time we're going to do an event in Portugal and I've got an invitation and so has he, so in that case, we can have two teams going. And with the next week, the boat being worked on, we're going to get two small boats and then we're going to start racing in-house, with a greater number of crew members so everyone understands what all the set moves are.