14 The Times Magazinecarry a tiny scuba tank with 60 seconds’
worth of oxygen. They don’t leave dock
without two trauma doctors in the chase boat.
Carr says helmets were hard to introduce
initially, “because we all think we are tough”.
But a horrific accident in 2013 changed
everything. Andrew Simpson, Bart to his mates,
was sailing with the Swedish team in San
Francisco when their boat capsized, throwing
the crew into the sea. Ainslie was at that time
on the American team. Their safety boats
dashed to those in trouble, while they returned
to shore. “After a little bit we realised someone
was lost. And then that it was Andrew. He’d
been knocked unconscious and drowned.”
After his friend’s death, Ainslie returned
home. “For a long time...” He exhales hard.
“Everyone deals with these things differently.
For me, there were a couple of months where
my perspective changed a lot.” Eventually, it
was Simpson’s words in his head that brought
him back. “He would have been the first guy
to say, ‘Come on, get back out there.’ ”
We’re in Portsmouth today, but by the
time you read this, the world I’m looking
at will have been carefully packed up and
transported, every inch of it, to 56 Brigham
Street, Auckland. Britannia I will have gone by
ship, a 42-day journey. The race boat proper,
also christened Britannia but for now known
as RB2, has been flown in by an Antonov
military cargo plane. In all, 200 people
(including families) have relocated to New
Zealand. Houses have been found, schools
for kids, including Bellatrix. First, though,
quarantine for two weeks, with only an hour
outside a day. Ainslie says they’ve already been
told of a man who tried to escape to get beers.
He was made to start his 14 days all over again.
Something tells me the America’s Cup
2021 will be big in the UK. Perhaps it’s the
popularity of physics, of coding, of tech and
design, that will bring attention.
Maybe it will simply be the thought that
Ainslie can bring the cup back to the UK after
170 years. Ainslie says, “I remember when Ellen
MacArthur sailed around the world, that was
something that caught people’s imagination. It
was an amazing feat. It did so much for sailing.
People don’t really know that much about the
America’s Cup. Britain’s never won it. Now
we’re on the cusp of getting there. And I think
that’s something that will trigger interest.”
A UK win may also precipitate an
altogether different sort of revolution,
according to Freddie Carr: more women.
Right now, he says, the sheer “physicality of
the boats” means women are excluded, but,
“That’s something that the winners of the next
America’s Cup might seek to address. When
you win the cup, you get to rewrite the rules.” nBelstaff x Ineos Team UK onshore capsule
collection is available now on belstaff.co.uk‘I’M THE FIRST OUTSIDER TO TRY THE
TRAINING SIMULATOR. I FLOOD THE DECK’
Charlotte Edwardes crashes the team’s secret weapon
REBECCA REID
espite the obvious advantage
the Kiwis have training on home
waters, the British team have, in a
locked room downstairs in their
Portsmouth base, a simulator that
exactly replicates the experience
of sailing in Auckland harbour. I’m
the only outsider who has been
allowed to try it. By the way, part of the
fun of the competition is the espionage and
counterespionage from other teams, who
film and document Britannia’s designs and
innovations – often quite openly.
Throughout the base there are “wanted”
posters identifying these spies. On the boat,
they cruised past, white foam lacing the
water behind them like fat on meat. They
waved. We waved back. Ineos has its own
spies too, in Italy and America, and has
already simulated its competitors’ hulls
against its own. “We allocate budget towards
reconnaissance,” says Neil Hunter, the sailor
taking me through this experience.
I sit down at a wheel attached to a desk.
In front of me is a bank of screens and,
behind them, a big black cube, a mounted
motion platform, which replicates for the
sailors the feeling of being aboard the boat,
“but without the significant time and cost
implications of going on the water”. This
is where the team learn race craft. On
one wall is a leader board: Ainslie is top.
Everything here was built by James
Roche, the performance and data
analysis team leader, including the
background physics, visualisations,
displays and virtual reality, which
amounts to some five million lines
of code. Roche slips an Oculus Rift
onto my head and suddenly I am
in North Head in Auckland. I can
see the harbour, the water, trees,
rocks, land. But instead of the
smell of the sea, the sting of salt
in the breeze, I feel the weight
of the headset, the kick of the
steering wheel in my hands.
There are numbers on the
screen that show the angle of the
boat, my speed, wind speed, and
these numbers are spinning.
“These are your steering aids,”
Hunter says, trying not to soundanxious. “That top left number, 35, that’s the
speed of the boat. And you want to keep your
angle to the wind around 45-50.” Roche adds
something about 90 degrees off the wind,
but they both start saying, “Left, left, left, left
of the land,” and I jam the wheel left, but it’s
too far. “It’s really twitchy. You don’t need to
steer a lot,” one of them says, helping me back.
The tension in the room is palpable. “You’re
now at 90.” I think it’s Hunter saying this.
“You’re at max speed angle, so if you turn
slightly to the right, you’ll get that number
down.” Driving this boat is a constant
balancing act, he explains, of trying to
maintain the correct angle against the wind.
It’s superdifficult. The wheel has serious
pull. Hunter says this is how it really feels
out there. On a training day, the sailors
could be doing this for up to eight hours.
I can’t imagine how exhausting that must
be. We go for a tack. “So, you’ll hit the right-
hand pedal and then you’ll go right hand
down hard,” says Hunter. “You’re turning
through almost 90 degrees.” I try to steer,
the sun is blinding across the virtual water,
there are raised voices and rocks ahead and
then – the boat is filling with water. Oh my
God. I’ve crashed.
“So what happened there,” says Roche
gently, “was you just got a little bit too right
hand down and a little bit close to the
wind, so that the sails weren’t generating
enough power to keep you up out of
the water.” I am looking at the flooded
deck, ashamed. Later, I try again and
manage a gybe before crashing again.
If it weren’t so top secret, this would be
a great computer game.
One thing: I hadn’t
appreciated how much sailors
understand physics. Later,
Max Starr, core to the design
of the boat, tells me, “My world
is 100 per cent physics.” The
sailors need a good knowledge
of the physics of the airflow
that’s going on around them,
the boat and the sails. I ask if he
gets nervous when he watches
the team race the boat. He says
no. Then he corrects himself. His
leg jiggered all the time he was
watching the last cup, he says. n