INEOS Britannia’s History Making Win: Ben Cornish Exclusive

A 60 year wait is up – the British boat INEOS Britannia beat the Italians in the Louis Vuitton Cup, winning a long dreamt of place in the America’s Cup Match.

I caught up with Ben Cornish – Grinder and pathway ‘rebel’, turned Cyclor – on the British team’s greatest achievement so far…

With all eyes turned to the final of the 37th America’s Cup, it would be foolish to overlook INEOS Britannia’s history making Louis Vuitton Cup win. However the final plays out – this great British achievement wont be forgotten…

Ben Cornish Exclusive

I caught up with British Cyclor Ben Cornish on the competition so far, and how the Challenger of Record Team have prepared for the final against the Emirates Team New Zealand.

Were there any teams who surprised you throughout the round-robins or any other part of the last couple months?

Yeah, I mean Luna Rossa, when we first turned up here in Barcelona, were such a strong team. It would have been fair to say 2 months ago that they were the team to beat, even including the Kiwis, and I think that gives even more value to what we managed to do last week. It’s not like we managed to beat a team in the challenger final who weren’t really regarded as being great, but I mean yeah, it was certainly an exceptional team, we just did a really good job of eeking out performance out of Britannia.

I think If you look at our timeline from the first racing when we went into the round-robins, we were struggling in quite a few areas, but we knew the boat was capable of so much more. That was I guess really credit to the guys analysing performance, and people doing the work behind the scenes which you don’t normally see – eeking out the technique… [its about asking] how do we go about finding the extra five or ten percent that was available at the time? Which ultimately we managed to find most of…

Are there any hard days that particularly jump out at you? 

It’s sort of all blurred into one if I’m honest, the days which were challenging were certainly the ones where you came in… I mean the majority of the days which we came in having shared a point each. Those were always the days where I think most of the team members thought maybe we could have done something to get the break and gone two up. I think once we started to draw that rhythm of each team sharing a point per race, it certainly felt at that point that whichever team would get the break point and do a double race win, the momentum really went in their direction… Which as it played out, it certainly did in our direction…

I guess it was really nice to be able to go out on the Friday, with that one point needed, and get it done in the manner that we did. We almost, almost, sailed a perfectly executed race, with maybe one or two wobbles but certainly not many. Having watched it back, it was a really good one. 

How important is your background in cycling as well? 

It’s important… I mean, basically when we were racing the Finns, the bike training was basically how we supplemented that fitness. So it came far more naturally for me than grinding with the arms, and I’m a lot happier to be honest doing that. But it sort of depends on the roles, how we’ve divided the roles on the boat, and we’re in quite a fortunate position where we’ve got people on board, who are fit and understand these boats and can sail, so we can offload some of the work from the after-guard.

We’ve also got guys on board who’ve virtually never sailed before, but have come from the highest level of rowing, and competed at the Olympics. They really are our powerhouses, they are incredible athletes. 

How does the Cyclor communication work?

There is a lot, we’ve got a couple of comms channels on board the boat, so we’ve constantly got the voice of the helms and the after-guard about, painting the picture – what we’re going to do, what’s coming next… Then within that we’ve got our own loop of the four Cyclors, and we talk, mainly sort of talking people through when to manage their effort and talking people up into harder pushes, or backing off. 

The more racing you do with three other guys on board the more dialled in you get, and actually unless something out of the ordinary happens, there’s not a huge amount you need to give much warning of. 

How will it be different racing the Kiwis Vs the Italians? 

Since we raced them last, there’s quite a bit unknown in relative performance, I think that’s fair to say. I think where we left of, having raced Luna Rossa, we’re in a really good place, with not only the boat’s performance, but with the technique from the guys on board. The focus for the next few days is really making sure that we’re in a position that, whatever the Kiwis through, we’ve got something to fight back with. That comes from a huge analysis team, again behind the scenes – we send people out to watch the Kiwi sailing pretty much every single day they’re out there. So, we’ve got a real good record of what they’ve been up to and what they’re capable of, so it’s just putting that into practice…

How much communication is there between the Women’s and Men’s British teams – Does any of the strategy and training happen together? 

Yeah it’s been great following that action, and I’ve been hooked on it when we’ve not been on the water, I’ve had it on the phone, on YouTube watching.

In terms of how we’ve collaborated, I mean when we first started in these AC40s, we had quite a lot of the Youth and Women’s teams down sailing with us quite actively, and it was a massive learning hurdle for those guys to come and get thrown straight in the deep end, getting involved with the racing here. I guess once we started to ramp up into the action of the big boat, that sort of got separated a bit. But, I guess the tie between the team – the youth and women’s team – there’s so much more available, not only just from techniques and from a performance point of view, but from the hardware and the maintaining of the boats – it’s been a really nice period to watch. 

How will you celebrate and unwind as a team? 

It’s really hard when you’re in the bubble of the moment to actually think that far in front in all honesty. But, we’re all eyes down on the task and we know that each given day we know that we need to go out and sail to our 100% to be able to take away the points which we need from the Kiwis. We know that we need 7 race wins to be able to get across the line, and there’s not really been a huge amount of thought beyond that point if I’m honest.

More on the America’s Cup

• Puig Women’s America’s Cup: All-Female Crews Take Centre Stage
• 37th America’s Cup: Key Info, Dates & How to Watch
• America’s Cup Boats: What it’s like helming an AC75

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