Tokyo 2020 Olympics - Sailing - Men's 49er - Opening Series - Enoshima Yacht Harbour - Tokyo, Japan - July 27, 2021. Dylan Fletcher and Stuart Bithell of Britain get ready before competing. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
LONDON (Reuters) - Ben Ainslie has picked Dylan Fletcher to helm the British team for SailGP's fifth season, which begins in Dubai in just over a week's time, filling the gap left by Giles Scott, who jumped ship to the league's Canadian team.
Fletcher returns to SailGP as 'driver' of the team owned and run by Ainslie, who also chose the 36-year-old as his co-helm for Britain's ultimately unsuccessful attempt to wrest the America's Cup from New Zealand last month.
"This is the team I wanted to be part of. I feel like there's a future here with the F50 team and then the America's Cup ... I really want to work and build the whole thing together," Fletcher said of his new role.
The 49er Olympic gold medal winner in Tokyo, who helmed the British team's high-speed foiling catamaran in SailGP's first season, told Reuters that its expansion to 14 events and 12 teams meant it was going to be a lot tougher.
"I've missed out on three seasons, and the standard is going to be incredibly high," Fletcher said in an interview before flying to Dubai for pre-race training on an F50 simulator.
"I've got a team that's capable of winning, and it's very much about me and my ability to learn and get on with doing a good job," he said, adding that he had gained a lot of knowledge from the America's Cup campaign with Ainslie in Barcelona.
Fletcher said Ainslie's "feel" for the boat was one thing that had stood out about the 47-year-old's helming, adding that it had first felt strange to be competing alongside the sailor who as a teenager he had asked to sign his life-jacket.
"It really is just trusting your intuition, regardless of the boat and how it feels, it's still that same fundamental instinct," he said of his America's Cup lessons.
'INCREDIBLE'
Fletcher also said he was looking forward to competing with strategist Hannah Mills, who he has known as part of Britain's Olympic sailing set-up since they were teenagers, adding that the two have developed a similar communication style.
"I really do hope that our relationship will work well and we can get the most out of each other," he said, adding that it was also a priority for Mills to get time "on the wheel".
Mills had been a "standout" contender for the driver role, Ainslie said in a statement, and the team was supporting the double-Olympic gold medallist's ambition to helm an F50, which can reach speeds nearing 100 kilometres per hour (kph).
Last month, Mills and her British crew were runners up to Italy in the first America's Cup for women.
The other returning members of Fletcher's SailGP crew are flight controller Luke Parkinson, wing trimmer Iain Jensen and grinders Neil Hunter and Nick Hutton.
A newcomer is Kai Hockley, who has been part of Britain's SailGP and America's Cup shore teams for the last nine months.
Hockley, 18, will now combine that role with on-the-water development with a goal of racing the F50.
SailGP said Emirates, which already sponsors the British team, will become the league's official global airline as well as title sponsor of a SailGP event to be held in Portsmouth, on the south coast of England, on July 19-20, 2025.
"It's going to be incredible. I can't wait to race in front of the home crowd and really just hope that we get good conditions," Fletcher said of the choice of venue.
(Reporting by Alexander Smith; Editing by Toby Davis)
