The UK’s sailed through many a rough patch and come out all the better – so Brexit’s not a worry! But why the hell can’t we win the America’s Cup?
After too many years in the City, experience has taught me that stuff happens if it’s going to happen. Very little worries me much (markets go up and they go down – deal with it), but I am desperately trying to understand why the UK, the most successful sailing nation on the planet, has spent 170 years not winning sailing’s ultimate trophy, the Auld Mug… the America’s Cup. It’s perhaps the longest losing streak in sporting history.
I suspect I know why: we might be trying too hard. I have a theory our economy and our sporting successes might be connected. Just like football is a game of two halves that Germany wins, the America’s Cup is a trophy Britain seems fated never to take home – possibly because we want it too badly. Football, sailing, tennis and rugby are all terribly important to us, but no matter how hard we prepare, we seem fated to lose. Formula 1 isn’t so much a sport as a technological arms race, and we do seem to do rather well in that…
In this rainy little island at the unfashionable extremity of Europe, sailing is in our blood. But the weather might have coloured our approach to the really important stuff. Britain has achieved an unbeatable record and an unparalleled reputation for muddling through the big stuff. We’ve turned muddling through into an art form, and it usually works out well enough. Whether it’s taking time to finish a game of bowls on Plymouth Ho before sorting out the Spanish, beating the French on the playing fields of Eton, taking on the Pathans with a nice cup of tea, sending a tiny, contemptible army to biff the Kaiser, or taking on the Nazis with bully-beef sandwiches, it usually works out for the best.
It’s not as bad as you think
The history of the UK is a succession of improbable events that seldom turn out as badly as we had feared and often end up a darn sight better than we could have expected. Hence my absolute lack of concern at how bad Brexit is proving in practice. It’s likely to be yet another classic brief unpleasantness before we come out better at the end. Covid is just another flaff – terrible though it be, we’ve probably been overcounting, and we’ve given jabs to more people than most.
The view that things aren’t as bad as we think is held by an increasing number of financial commentators. Post Brexit they variously perceive the UK as unconstrained by imagined European straitjackets; others consider it undervalued, with a great investment thesis behind it. Broadly, I’d agree. The potential upside for the UK outweighs the feared downside. But we will still have to work at it, and pray to the gods of satisficing.
Yep, it’s all about satisficing – the professional approach to muddling through. Brexit will likely become another classic example. The UK stumbled into Brexit almost by mistake; politically no one really expected it, and we even thought at one point that dear old Boris would be leading the team waving the Remainer flag! After the surprising vote, the then prime minster resigned in a huff and the government fluffed its way through protracted negotiations – somewhat stunned it was having to do so. We departed in a hurried kerfuffle in 2019, and then very nearly failed to negotiate any meaningful trade deal in 2020.
Viewed from overseas, Brexit looks like an ever-rolling calamity as our global partners wonder what will go wrong next. Domestically it ain’t proving much fun either. Trade is handicapped by layers of red tape, our shellfish are rotting on the quays, the fishing industry that Boris fought for and then sacrificed for a deal is floundering, and even our world-class financial services are under threat as Amsterdam and New York seize market share.
It’s the way we do things – start badly and end well
The situation is dire. Relax! It will all be fine. Funnily enough, it’s the comments of a French general (Ferdinand Foch) that sum it up best: “My centre is giving way, my right is retreating, situation excellent. I am attacking.” It’s the way we do things – start badly and end well. It’s been well summed up, notably by Bloomberg writer John Authors, who wrote that “the UK shot itself in the foot. It did not shoot itself in the head.”
We beat the Armada because the English sailed better, were nimbler, nipped and tucked ’til they forced the Spaniards to flee. The British Army of the Napoleonic era was better trained and unbeaten by the French. When the Brits avenged an army destroyed by the Pathans, we had the good sense to get in and out of Afghanistan sharpish. The British Army of 1918 was again the best trained and most professional, and it destroyed the Germans over the late summer into November. By the end of 1945 we were broke – but we’d won, because we muddled through better than anyone else.
Sail on
So let’s not worry about Brexit, or covid, or whatever challenges face the City. But muddling through just hasn’t worked when it comes to the America’s Cup. No matter how hard we try, we just get nowhere. (Actually, I should remind readers, the first edition of the race in 1851 was won by the Schooner America only because they banged the corner by missing a mark of the course, meaning the English yachts sailed much further. No one protested because Queen Victoria had already been told the Americans had won. There – the truth is out!)
Skip forward to February 2021 and the UK was bowled out of the competition yet again. This time it was in New Zealand, and we were beaten by the Italians. The Italians?! Surely you jest.
’Fraid not, and you might have missed most of this story, as the BBC doesn’t report sailing. BBC types, safe in their Islington lairs, are anxious not to offend countries the Royal Navy has gubbed at some point (which is pretty much every nation with a coastline and a good few without). The BBC has determined sailors to be pale, male and stale, drinking pink cocktails in expensive yacht clubs – therefore sailing is elitist, in a way that golf apparently is not.
The reality is, outside the M25, sailing is the number two sporting activity in the UK. It comes just behind fishing. Britain has won more sailing gold medals than anyone. Sir Ben Ainslie is among the most successful Olympians ever. And he was leading the UK team that just lost.
It was the best-funded team ever. Jim Ratcliffe, CEO of Ineos, and his buddies on the board ploughed £110m into the challenge. And what a challenge it became: the Americans, the Italians, the Kiwis and the Brits all designed and launched the fastest monohull yachts in history. They didn’t so much sail as fly, as the 72-foot yachts were propelled out the water on hydrofoils. Team Ineos hired the best designers and technologists from Formula 1 and motor sports and spent it all on building the ultimate yacht, Britannia.
We’ve turned muddling through into an art form… But muddling through just hasn’t worked when it comes to the America’s Cup
The boat was an absolute beast. Big, menacing and looking likely to be fast. But its first couple of races pre-Christmas were frankly embarrassing – Ben and his team struggled with it. Yet they persevered and bullied their way into the final of the Prada Cup in a three-way contest with the Americans and the Italians. They beat both other teams convincingly. We all thought the UK was heading to the actual America’s Cup – taking on the holders New Zealand. (You have to beat all the other challengers in the Prada Cup to earn the right to take on the holders in the actual cup.)
It was all looking good. The Americans managed to nearly sink their boat, capsizing it at 53 knots, meaning it was a UK versus Italy final. Predictably, it all went wrong. The Italians’ philosophy was completely different: they’d built a beautiful boat. It’s a sailing rule that a pretty boat is a fast boat. And so it proved. For the all the computational might, design strength and technological brilliance of Ineos’s Britannia, it was beaten 1-7 by the Italians’ Luna Rossa. For all the skill of the British sailors, they were left chasing the lithesome Italian filly in their hulking brute. The Italians sailed faster and straighter in light winds and won. Convincingly.
No matter how sleek the Italians looked, the Kiwis still beat them 7-3 in some of the most hotly contested racing the America’s Cup has ever seen, retaining their title on 17 March. It might be four years before the UK gets another shot, but maybe next time Jim Ratcliffe, Sir Ben Ainslie and the rest of the sailing and design team will focus a little less on the technology (which is critical to get right, mind you) and more on the artistry of sailing as a sport – rather than simply Formula 1 on the water.
