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Sir Ben Ainslie, the most decorated Olympic sailor of all time, will compete for the chance to make history when he takes on veteran Italian skipper Max Sirena in Barcelona today.
The first to win seven races over the next ten days will earn the right to challenge defending champion New Zealand for the America’s Cup, sailing’s most prestigious prize and the sport’s oldest international trophy.
It is 173 years since Queen Victoria watched as the New York Yacht Club upset the natural order of things by defeating her Royal Yacht Squadron in a race around the Isle of Wight on 22 August 1851.
Since then, the Americans have won the Auld Mug 30 times, while New Zealand has won it four times, Switzerland twice and Australia once.
Yet despite 23 attempts, Britain have yet to claim the trophy, a lasting stain that has bothered four-time Olympic gold medallist Ainslie for years.
Prestige: The America’s Cup held in Barcelona is not just a competition between sailors, it is also a battle of egos between some of the richest men on the planet.
If the 47-year-old and his Ineos Britannia team win, his legacy as the greatest competitive sailor this country has ever produced will surely be assured.
It would also mark a surprise victory for the sports-mad billionaire bankrolling the British challenge: Sir Jim Ratcliffe, founder of global chemicals giant Ineos and co-owner of Manchester United.
Because the Copa America is also a battle of egos between some of the richest men on the planet.
Of Barcelona’s six teams, all are backed by wealthy and ultra-competitive benefactors.
These include Italian-Swiss pharmaceutical magnate Ernesto Bertarelli of the Swiss Alinghi Red Bull Racing team and American retail magnate Doug DeVos of the NYYC American Magic team.
The British-Italian race series that begins today is no different, pitting two tycoons against each other.
Ratcliffe, 71, was raised in a council house in Lancashire and made his estimated £23.5bn fortune in chemicals.
An adventurer and passionate marathon runner, he divides his time between his homes in Hampshire and Monaco.
In 2020, it changed its tax status to that of a principality on the French Riviera, a move that saved it £4bn at the time.
The big money behind Sirena and her team at Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli comes courtesy of Patrizio Bertelli, the head of the Prada Group, who married into Italy’s glamorous fashion dynasty.
Bertelli, a passionate sailor, founded the Italian team Luna Rossa almost 30 years ago and has already financed four failed bids for the America’s Cup.
Like any self-respecting billionaire, Ratcliffe has a very big boat: his 78.5-metre, £130m Hampshire II megayacht, complete with helipad and beach club, is moored next to the Ineos team base in Barcelona.
But he is not a keen sailor and only became involved after meeting Ainslie for a drink in 2018, a few months after Ainslie’s British team fell short in the America’s Cup in Bermuda.
Ratcliffe would later joke that it turned out to be “the most expensive gin and tonic ever” as, four weeks later, he signed a £110m deal to fund Great Britain’s challenge in Auckland in 2021.
Ineos Britannia
Multimillionaire: Mr. Jim Ratcliffe
Estimated fortune: £23.5 billion
Pattern: Mr Ben Ainslie
The richest of all the backers, Ratcliffe had an inauspicious start to his career. After graduating from Birmingham University with a degree in chemical engineering in the mid-1970s, he was sacked by BP within three days because his eczema made him unfit to work with chemicals.
More than 20 years later, he co-founded the chemicals company Ineos and is now one of the richest people in Britain.
He has indulged his passion for sport, buying French football club Nice, taking over Britain’s professional cycling team and acquiring a major stake in Manchester United.
Ineos took over Great Britain’s drive for the America’s Cup in 2018.
It pledged £110m to the Auckland event in 2021 but was knocked out by Italy’s Luna Rossa.
Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli
Multimillionaire: Patrizio Bertelli
Estimated fortune: £4 billion
Pattern: Maximum siren
Italian billionaire Patrizio Bertelli, 78, is the driving force behind Italian racing team Luna Rossa.
He founded a leather goods company while still at university, but struck it lucky in the 1970s when he met and married Miuccia Prada, the granddaughter of Mario Prada, founder of the luxury brand.
Bertelli’s estimated £4bn fortune, derived from his management of Prada, which he still chairs, has funded several Luna Rossa campaigns.
Having sailed and raced yachts for most of his life, he founded Luna Rossa in 1997.
Now in its fifth edition, it has failed to establish itself.
In 2021, they came close to victory as they lost to Team New Zealand in the final and will face Ineos Britannia in the Louis Vuitton Cup final, which starts today. The winner will face Team New Zealand in the America’s Cup next month.
It is unlikely that their second outing this year would have been any cheaper. America’s Cup great Dennis Conner has estimated that a syndicate will need at least £150m to have any chance of winning this year.
What really attracted Ratcliffe, he says, was the unique challenge.
Ratcliffe, who also owns British cycling team Ineos Grenadiers and a third of Formula One racing team Mercedes, has described winning the America’s Cup as being as important as returning the Red Devils to the top of the Premier League.
Earlier this year, Ineos Group paid more than £1bn for a 25 per cent stake in Manchester United, taking over its football operations.
Of course, yacht racing and big money have always gone hand in hand.
The America’s Cup is a magnet for high-profile sponsors, from Prada to Rolex to Louis Vuitton, owned by LVMH, the luxury goods empire controlled by one of the world’s richest people, Frenchman Bernard Arnault.
This year, the challenger cup in which teams compete to take on the Copa America champions has been named the Louis Vuitton Cup.
Swiss luxury watchmaker Omega has replaced Rolex as the event’s official timekeeper. Italian tyre manufacturer Pirelli and airline Emirates are among the other sponsors.
But long before it became a marketing dream for fancy handbags and Swiss watches, the America’s Cup has provided a playground for billionaires who invest huge fortunes in building teams, designing high-tech boats and assembling world-class crews.
Winning American crews over the years have received endorsements from everyone from Wall Street giant John Pierpont Morgan in the early 20th century to Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison 100 years later.
The latter is estimated to have spent around £560m on five campaigns, two of which were successful.
The event has also proven to be a very effective means of throwing good money away. French tycoon Baron Marcel Bich, who gave the world the Bic pen, made four failed attempts between 1970 and 1980.
Scottish tea merchant Sir Thomas Lipton was also a serial loser, making five failed attempts in the early 20th century.
“The America’s Cup is a financial black hole,” says John Bertrand, 77, who led Australia II to the most famous victory in America’s Cup history, 41 years ago in 1983.
He and his crew defeated the New York Yacht Club of Rhode Island in Newport, the first time the Americans had been defeated in the 132 years of competition, ending the sport’s longest winning streak.
He told the Mail: “It all comes down to the X factor of winning the most prestigious sporting event on the planet. If you win, you can walk the walk of any king or queen in the world.”
In the four decades since then, financing a rig has become an even more expensive hobby as technology has become more advanced.
Modern yachts have been compared to Formula 1 racing cars and can travel at 60 mph.
The 75-foot carbon fiber-hulled, foiling monohull used this year has a very different look to traditional yachts.
They have no keel and are designed to fly above the surface of the water using mechanical arms that move underneath or outside the boat to provide the leverage they need to stay upright.
In the UK and Ireland, anyone wanting to tune in to the race will need to do so online, on YouTube, Facebook or the event’s official website.
This lack of exposure can irritate those with big spenders. Many in the sailing world believe the sport has much to learn from Formula 1, which has brought the sport to a much wider audience through the hit Netflix series Drive to Survive.
If Sir Ben Ainslie’s crew achieve a historic victory next month, perhaps this will finally ignite the imagination of the British public.
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