The hypnotic competitiveness of Sir Ben Ainslie 

Sailing’s very own ubermensch Sir Ben Ainslie has every right to be considered the world’s most competitive bloke. Those who knew him as a teenager say he always had just two ambitions: to bag a sackful of Olympic medals, and to win the America’s Cup for Britain. Well he didn’t have much trouble becoming the most successful sailor in Olympic history, with four golds and a silver. The America’s Cup, however – the ultimate challenge for yacht-racers – is proving a bit trickier.

You might think this is a preposterous event, bearing little relationship to anything you or I might mean by the word ‘boats’ or ‘sailing’ and pursued by very rich men for indeterminate reasons. Well, there’s some truth in that: it certainly hasn’t much in common with the red-trouser brigades of Cowes or Salcombe. But this is far from the whole story.