The pride of British sailing has been unveiled: Sir Ben Ainslie's wife Georgie and their daughter Bellatrix Ainslie christened the 15-metre projectile "Rita" on Monday in Bermuda with premium English sparkling wine. Team Land Rover BAR is the 21st time a British team has competed for the most famous trophy in international sailing. However, the British have never been able to win the famous silver jug, which Sir Thomas Lipton came closest to in his five attempts between 1899 and 1930. Back then, Lipton was awarded a trophy created especially for him for his persevering passion characterised by fair play: the trophy for the "best of all losers". 166 years after the Cup première, his descendants will be competing with sailing star Ainslie, Olympic champion Giles Scott and their team in June to bring the "bottomless jug" back to their home country with a victory for the first time since 1851. They no longer want to be losers.
The 15-metre America's Cup class catamaran presented itself in coal black 107 days before the start of the race at the team camp in Bermuda. 1200 metres of electronic and electrical cables connect 190 sensors and four video cameras on board the futuristic-looking racing machine. The boat is called "R1" for short. The real name, however, is "Rita" - which is also the name of all 19 of Ainslie's previous Olympic and World Championship boats.
There is an old story behind the name: when Ainslie took part in the Opti World Championship in Argentina in 1992, he was accompanied by his mother. While her son was sailing, she went to see the sights in the area and discovered a small church dedicated to St Rita somewhere in the middle of nowhere. When Ben's mum returned, she brought Ben a small sticker of Saint Rita and sewed it onto the inside of his lifejacket. Since then, the name Rita has accompanied the man who, with four Olympic victories and a silver medal, became the most successful Olympic sailor in sporting history and is now competing for the America's Cup under the British flag. With "Rita".
If the British have their way, "Rita" will first defeat the four other challengers from Sweden, Japan, New Zealand and France and then beat the American defenders in the 35th America's Cup duel. Ainslie calls the new Cup catamarans the "most advanced sailing boats on the planet". "We believe," says the skipper, "that our team is the most advanced and best-prepared British challenger." A total of 50,000 design hours and 35,000 design and construction hours have gone into the 2.4-tonne boat, which has to be mastered by an extremely athletic crew of six.
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
