The INEOS Interviews: Ben Cornish
by Mark Jardine 20 Aug 2024 01:30 AEST
Ben Cornish © Lloyd Images
The Exe Estuary in Devon has been a hotbed of sailing talent for many years. Ben Cornish grew up seeing the exploits of fellow Exmouth sailors Joe Glanfield, Stevie Morrison, Ben Rhodes and Conrad Humphries, and wanted to become an Olympian himself.
He rose through the ranks in the British Sailing Team in the Laser and the Finn classes, becoming training partner to Giles Scott, but with the Finn being dropped from the Olympics he turned his attention to the America's Cup.
Being a keen cyclist meant that Ben is a natural part of the cyclor team on INEOS Britannia. He also explains why it's critical to have sailors amongst the power generation team, rather than just bringing in specialists from outside the sport.
Mark Jardine: Coming from a sailing background where you've been a hugely successful dinghy sailor, how does it feel to be a part of the power generation team in the British America's Cup team?
Ben Cornish: It's become the norm for me over the last eight or ten years. This campaign is really no different to the last, other than the obvious that we're no longer using our arms with traditional grinding technique, and this time around, we're using our legs - as is every other team - to power the boat.
Mark: In previous campaigns, when you've had to create power, it's quite often been explosive power. You need to generate a certain amount of power at a certain time. But this one is far more aerobic with continuous power generation. From the point of view of your physiology, how's that transition been?
Ben: Typically, a 20-minute race is a constant effort, but still for manoeuvres, such as tacks, gybes, bearaways, round-ups, there still needs to be a big power spike. So it's a constant, let's say a threshold effort with an occasional maximal ramp thrown in there.
Physically, it's a really, really difficult thing to train for, and the races are extremely hard work. To train for that transition, initially I came as a Finn sailor and then became a grinder, so I guess all of my baseline training had been in the legs. So for me to become a grinder was actually really quite hard work, and then to come back to the legs was far more natural for me; having done all my earlier years training on the bike and leg weights in the gym, I was a lot happier to come back to this way to be honest.
This time around we've got more people involved in the sport from outside of sailing than we ever had before, which is interesting. Three of our cyclor team came from the rowing world and some of the numbers that they put out with their legs are phenomenal. In terms of sport science and how the Cup has developed that way it is pretty interesting.
Mark: On board you have your screen which is providing your data and where you are on the race course, so that you know when those big spike moments are coming. But what is your comms like on your cyclor comm network?
Ben: It's good question. Everyone in their cockpit has a display with critical information of what the boat needs. It's the displays that sort of Cox the power required. We're almost at the point now as a cyclor unit where we can race without talking to each other, but at the same time, you know the guys such as myself and the other sailor cyclors that say, who have done a bit of this now, are helping the new guys to really understand the moments you can back off, as in 10 or 15 seconds you foresee there's going to be an interaction with another boat.
With the guys that haven't raced before it's really important that you paint the picture to them. Also, we generally ride head down, so it's very hard to tell what the next move is going to be. The occasional glance from a from a sailor cyclor is actually really important.
Mark: Your bikes are effectively tandems, so pairing up with someone on your side of the boat who has a similar physiology must be extremely important.
Ben: Yes, it is. We've got to the point where there's obviously some outliers with massive power numbers in the team, but we're all at a point where most people can race with each other in terms of power output. The main thing there is we're obviously displaying our live power and you're communicating at any moment in time when we want to be pushing this power. It's when people get ahead of themselves or are struggling for whatever reason - that's when it gets hard, when you're out of whack. As long as everyone understands the power required at that time and they're vigilant of holding it, it's quite comfortable.
Mark: Is the hardest point pre-start or the windward mark bear away?
Ben: Pre-starts, for sure, will be the hardest this Cup. Just the nature of it. You know you're not ever at a state of where the boat is overly comfortable and you're always looking for the next manoeuvre or trimming on, so there's pretty much two minutes of close your eyes and max effort.
Mark: The actual time that you get sailing an AC75 is a tiny percentage of the actual campaign. What is your day-to-day life like when you're off the boat?
Ben: I guess I was quite lucky that my role in this Cup has sort of dualled up as one of the helmsmen on board the AC40s. All of the two-boat racing and testing we did through T6 (the LEQ12 test boat) and in the AC40s, I was coming along with the afterguard loop of learning the helming and the pre-start two boating, the racing, which was for me, probably one of the highlights of this campaign, obviously not having to get stuck into any anything physical there, either.
For me to then flow through that period and into the AC75, it just means there's so much more understanding of what we're trying to achieve globally with the boat setup, from foil trim to sail set up - everything. I've got far more understanding this campaign than I ever did of what these boats are trying to achieve.
Mark: It must be unique, are you the only person who has experience of the afterguard and power generation?
Ben: I'm not sure about the other teams to be honest, but I guess it was. It was a really nice role for me to be able to get the chance to do this campaign.