Interview

Leading legend

HANNAH MILLS chats to Georgie Corlett-Pitt about teaming up with Sir Ben Ainslie ahead of SailGP's third season

Hannah Mills needs little introduction. Gold at the Olympic Games in Tokyo added to gold from Rio 2016, and silver from London 2012, to cement her position as a household legend. It is the greatest-ever achievement by a female sailor, and adds to a long list of impressive titles, including numerous world championship wins. Most recently, Hannah was voted World Sailor of the Year (alongside her Tokyo 470 crew

Eilidh McIntyre) and received an

OBE in the New Years Honours.

Now she is about to give everything to her next chapter.

Working closely with Sir Ben Ainslie on a number of programmes, she has a jam-packed year ahead.

Top of the list is sailing on board with Ben as part of the Great Britain SailGP crew. The move isn’t exactly new - Hannah began sailing with the team in April 2021 during Season 2 of SailGP. She was one of the very first sailors involved with the innovative Women’s Perfromance Pathway, which SailGP introduced to ‘accelerate inclusion within the sport and inspire change’. The initiative enables elite female sailors to gain experience in sailing the cutting edge F50 – one-design catamarans which are easily capable of 50+ knots thanks to their foils, wingsails and other tech developed for the 35th America’s Cup. But what was a trial to involve female sailors last year has been stepped up for this year, and Hannah is delighted that she will be a key part of the British team going into Season 3.

New rules mean that each crew must include at least one female athlete, with the possibility that number will increase as the season progresses - the ultimate aim being a dedicated all-female competition dovetailing into the main league. It would be a huge milestone, but SailGP is founded on innovation, and inclusivity is at the core of its operations, so the ambition comes as little surprise.

Having been training with the British team as part of a squad of female sailors to date, Hannah is brimming with enthusiasm as she says: “This is the first full season

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Hannah says it's an exciting time for women in sailing, both at pro and amateur level

BELOW

SailGP returns to Plymouth in July - the event will be a highlight for Hannah

PHOTOS BOB MARTIN/JONATHON NACKSTRAND/SAILGP

where there will be women on board in each event. It’s a great progression forward from last season when the focus was on figuring out how it was all going to work. Now there is a much clearer plan as to how the programme is going to move forward and that’s really exciting.”

Season 3 starts in Bermuda on 14-15 May, the first of 10 events worldwide, including a UK leg in Plymouth over 30-31 July.

Before then, Season 2 is still to wrap up with the Grand Final in San Francisco, USA, on 26-27 March. The final weekend is expected to be exceptionally close, with Team Australia (Tom Slingsby) looking to defend their Season 1 title from Team USA (Jimmy Spithill) and Team Japan (Nathan Outteridge) - both super close behind on points and with everything to play for.

Although a number of unfortunate incidents earlier in the season have put the Great Britain SailGP Team out of contention for the overall trophy and $1 million prize money, Hannah says she can’t wait to get back out on the water and race.

“I’m really looking forward to sailing again as part of the team – it’s a really cool team to be a part of. I’m also excited about being a part of that team and trying to get the consistency that’s really hard to find in SailGP; because of the way the racing is designed and everything that’s going on, it’s pretty challenging to achieve that. There is very limited practice time, the events are always busy with lots of different things going on, and of course the nature of the racing. There will be two extra boats competing next season (10 teams in total), so that makes it tricky to be consistent. So that’s a really exciting goal for this season, to figure out how we can achieve this as a team.”

Unique opportunity

Up until now, Hannah has been sailing in the sixth sailor spot, sat behind the helm giving input on strategy/tactics and communications – as have all the female sailors. Hannah says there’s no doubt that this is a key role, and a great opportunity to learn how the boat handles, but says the ambition is to get females into other roles such as wing trim, flight control and helm. “That would be a really cool step forward,” she says with a look of determination.

For Season 3, Hannah has been tasked with helping to make this happen, managing the Women’s Performance Pathway with support from newly appointed SailGP Women’s Coordinator, Lindsay Molyneux.

“The aim is to bring more athletes on board, identify which of the roles on the boat individuals might be best for and then build the right programme to allow them to upskill in those roles. Each role is quite specific and I think there’s quite a specific training pathway to upskill in each of the different areas, helm, flight control or wing trim, so it’s an exciting opportunity.”

Hannah will be taking on a unique responsibility for shaping not just individual athlete’s futures but the success and impact of the Pathway overall. But her experience and knowledge mean she is perfectly placed, and what’s more, she is determined to do everything she can to progress gender equality,

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New rules mean every team will have a female on board - Hannah will head the programme to recruit and upskill new sailors

not just at elite level but beyond; the SailGP programme is a great platform to inspire others by showing what can be achieved.

She has been fully backed in this venture by Ben Ainslie and says it’s great to have his involvement. “He is really supportive of it all, in thinking about the development pathway and what that looks like for women and girls coming through. He understands the opportunity that the SailGP programme has to really change the view of gender – not just in sailing, but beyond. If you see women and men racing on these high performance boats together, that says an awful lot more I think than having separate teams.”

While Hannah acknowledges that a significant cultural shift is needed to achieve widespread gender equality in the sport, she strongly believes that is within reach. She cites the acceptance of the mixed Nacra 17 fleet into the Olympics as an inspiring precedent. Broadening opportunities at every level is key, as she says: “Yes in some boats and fleets there are experience gaps with women, and that is because we haven’t had the opportunities that a lot of the guys have had for various reasons, but with the right opportunities those gaps will be bridged pretty quickly. Women are good and we can learn. It’s not an insurmountable challenge at all.”

Platform for change

As a pinnacle sporting event, SailGP is a prime platform for change; it’s well funded and has a huge media outreach. But can events operating at grassroots level also effectively promote change?

“I think that every event should be looking to replicate the sort of examples set by SailGP,” says Hannah. “Gender equality is obviously huge, a global issue. Sailing as a sport is so perfectly placed to tackle it - not just on the water but off the water as well, in different roles. And beyond that you can’t imagine the reach that could possibly have.

“Events need to be more focussed on inclusivity and mixed teams. Some clubs have started running family events where youngsters have an on-the-water activity day while mum and dad are out racing – it’s things like that I think will make a big difference to involving women in sport.

“We’re at a really exciting time for women in sailing. If I was a young sailor now, looking at what’s going on with SailGP and the Women’s America’s Cup and all the different initiatives that are starting to really come about, I would be so excited. I do think we are at a point of shift, real shift, and I think also whether as an athlete sailing or in the wider sailing industry I think there will be more and more opportunities for women to be involved in our sports.”

For Hannah herself, the introduction of the Women’s America’s Cup is a thrilling prospect, and the experience she is now clocking up with Ainslie’s team, coupled with her tremendous natural talent, make her an obvious candidate for heading up a British boat. You can see she is fighting to

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Sir Ben Ainslie is backing Hannah's involvement on and off the water

BELOW

Hannah has her sights firmly set on the Women's America's Cup hide her excitement at the possibility but while the details are still being firmed up, there’s little to be drawn on. With a raft of announcements due any day from Emirates Team New Zealand, there shouldn’t be long to wait, and with the new AC40 class due to splash later this summer, things could soon get very real.

Project launch

In the meantime, another launch will be keeping Hannah busy. Not on the water this time, but very close to it.

Sustainability is a topic that has been close to Hannah’s heart, ever since she experienced outrage at the state of the Olympic waters off Rio in the build-up to the 2016 Games. That spurred her to launch the Big Plastic Pledge, a global campaign backed by the International Olympic Committee uniting athletes in a bid to inspire and educate on the elimination of single use plastic.

Now she is doubling her efforts by becoming an ambassador for The 1851 Trust’s Protect our Future programme, launching this month.

This new online digital programme seeks to enable young people to tackle climate change with the support of industry partnerships; the goal is to help 1 million school children take action to protect the planet by 2025, with the aid of tailored support, educational content and scientific access programmes.

Hannah is passionate about the subject. Despite the complexities of sustainability challenges facing the sailing industry – which range from air travel to life cycle of boats - she says change absolutely needs to take place. “We all have a responsibility, regardless of our position, to be doing everything we possibly can to make a difference; whether that’s just looking at an event and asking how it can be run as sustainably as possible, or whether it’s looking at the reach of that event and how it can have influence, it’s all really important.

“We’re pretty connected to the ocean as a sport and what we do, and so the impact we can have in our voice, in our conservation, is pretty huge – the more we can be advocates for that the more impact we can have.”

As Hannah is busy proving, we can - and should - all do our bit for change.