Ben Ainslie revelled in the simmering pressure of competition this morning when Team Origin secured a critical victory to qualify for the next stage of the Louis Vuitton Trophy in Auckland.
In a must-win match against the Franco-German syndicate All4One following back to back defeats on Tuesday, Ainslie put in a flawless performance as skipper and helm to clinch his team’s win after making a shrewd early gain and doggedly maintaining control.
By the first mark, Team Origin were 20 seconds ahead and the lead stretched to five boat lengths by the second weather mark. Despite having problems with a spinnaker sheet which resulted in a tear in the kite during the final downwind leg, that advantage grew to an impressive 27 seconds by the finish.
“Ben gave us an excellent start,” said Iain Percy, Team Origin tactician.
“He really is the best in the business on that front. From there I was confident to head right though we had to keep it tight over such a short race course and from there on in it was a pretty classic match race.”
Team Origin’s performances in the Louis Vuitton Trophy have been patchy, reflecting the relative inexperience of Ainslie’s 17 strong match racing team, which features nine British crew, compared to their opponents. In seven races, they had three wins and four defeats with penalties and collisions proving costly.
But Percy defended their form claiming the Team Origin campaign at this stage in their development was more performance rather than results driven.
“A couple of things could have gone the other way yesterday and we might have had two wins,” he said.
“The most important thing is to ‘up’ our game after a bad day and move forward. We have to keep the playing field level – whether a good or bad day, the key is never to make the same mistake twice.
“We are still pretty new to this game so we need to keep moving forward. The racing is so close here with some real quality competition on the course, and for sure no team here is ever going to hand you a race win!”
Eight teams have now been whittled down to six with Emirates Team New Zealand and Mascalzone Latino from Italy already qualified for the semi-finals. Azzurra and All4One remain in contention while Russian Team Synergy and Aleph of France were eliminated.
Team Origin will now battle against Swedish team Artemis in a best of three fight for a place in the semis.
HRH Princess Royal will visit the team tomorrow night during her visit to New Zealand. She was present at the launch of Team Origin in September in 2007 and has been a supporter ever since.
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