Happy days... Tony Langley steers the previous Gladiator to a race win in Sardinia in 2016. The following year, with a new Botin design and Ed Baird as tactician, the team had more good results, only losing the final round in Menorca on a tie-break to Super Series champion Azzurra. In 2018, however, Langley’s programme was severely disrupted when a plan to combine forces with Ben Ainslie’s BAR was aborted after the world’s greatest Olympic sailor found backing from Ineos for an America’s Cup challenge; Ineos CEO Jim Ratcliffe’s laser focus on success being the stuff of legend, it was no surprise when Ainslie’s team were instructed firmly to concentrate on the day job. For 2020 Langley had lined up another multiple gold medallist, Iain Percy, as tactician for the European Super Series rounds – we expect that relationship to quickly bear fruit when racing eventually gets underway again
is competitive against IRC boats but is not especially optimised for IRC and the C-boat is a more Corinthian boat in essence but it is still very competitive. It has won Round the Island a couple of times, Cowes Week a couple of times. I do like to mix it all up. ‘But the Super Series is quite above everything else. At the Super Series I am honing my skills. Always.’
In particular Langley the owner-driver loves to pit himself against the best professionals. Trying to outgun America’s Cup-winning helm Ed Baird off the startline still thrills him. ‘Yes, it might not be on exactly equal terms… but you are on the same piece of water. To compete against the very best is what I enjoy. When you do well you know you have done well… and they know you have done well.’ He reflects, ‘What do you get out of it? You walk down the dock after you have sailed well and somebody like Ed Baird will say, “Well sailed today, Tony,” and that means everything. And hearing it, say from Terry Hutchinson or Vasco, and, and, and… Those guys… you don’t get it unless you have earned it.
‘It is a pro circuit and you have to be a certain type to spend a considerable amount of money and to go out there and get beaten into the dirt – that is what will happen sometimes even doing every- thing really well. And so it is not for everyone at all. Some people want the shiny things.’
Like an increasing number of the 52 Super Series owners, Langley is unequivocal when it comes to the choice of venues and desti- nations. ‘Look, I think going to really cool places is important. I want to sail in really, really nice places. I like the South of France and would like to see the circuit go to Saint Tropez. Current loca- tions? Well, I do like Porto Cervo. And I enjoy sailing in Palma.’ That he sails with his very, very longtime friend Geoff Povey on
all the Gladiators adds considerable pleasure to the experience. The two first sailed a rented Hobie Cat together many moons ago and sometimes Geoff is almost as much part of the Gladiator line-up as Langley himself. ‘We have been mates for more than 50 years, more years than we care to remember. Or should I say now more years than either of us can remember.’
Perhaps Langley’s most settled spell of consistency recently was with Baird as tactician in 2017, finishing second at the season’s final regatta in Menorca tied on points with regatta winners Azzurra. Sadly 2018 then saw a late reshuffle to a plan that was to have seen Sir Ben Ainslie’s BAR team sail with Langley, before the launch of the Ineos AC programme clipped the AC squad’s wings in terms of time spent away from the Cup programme. Unfortunately by then Baird had moved on to new and different pastures. But the British owner-driver is proud to have sailed with so many of the very top names in the sport. ‘There are certainly gains to be made by having a stable team but that has not always improved my game.
‘I have always been clear about this. I want to work with the best. I want to look back and say I worked and learned from the best. To have stayed with relatively the same team over the last eight years I don’t think I would have got that (learning). I have worked with some very, very good people. The Best. And I have taken some- thing away from my time with every one of them.’ And since that difficult 2018 season he has made a point of integrating new, young British talent into the Gladiator programme, ‘I like doing it. As I said earlier, I like mixing it up. You see them improving in front of your eyes, sometimes exponentially so – and that is very satisfying.’ Andi Robertson
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