Meet Dylan Fletcher, Britain’s sailing star from a family of ballet dancers

No one saw Tokyo gold medallist’s promotion to co-helm Ineos Britannia coming but he has taken to the role with his parents’ sure-footedness

If there is a spring in the step of Ineos Britannia – and there should be given the momentum they are beginning to build in this America’s Cup – at least some of that is down to Dylan Fletcher.
Ben Ainslie’s co-helm on board the British AC75 has been a lively presence in the Louis Vuitton challenger series, with his constant chatter and energy.
Promoted at the 11th hour in place of Giles Scott, having made himself, in Ainslie’s words, “undroppable”, Fletcher’s is the voice you hear on the TV coverage, constantly talking, painting a picture for his skipper, reading the wind shifts, projecting the lay lines, giving Ainslie options on the race course.
Mind you, Fletcher ought to be sure-footed. It is in his blood. Both of his parents were ballet dancers. His father Graham Fletcher – or “Flecky” as he was known in the business – was a principal dancer in the Royal Ballet who had a wonderfully colourful career.
Fletcher snr was inside the Miss Piggy costume on the famous Muppet Show sketch “Swine Lake” from 1978, dancing with Rudolf Nureyev in a parody of the White Swan pas de deux from Swan Lake.
It was the start of a long association with American puppeteer Jim Henson, Fletcher snr appearing several times as the Fletcher Bird and Timmie the Martian in episodes that included guests Diana Ross, Liberace and Alice Cooper. Later he took on the role of Mr Mistoffolees in Cats, joining the original cast members. “That was probably Dad’s most notable role,” Fletcher says, smiling.
Mum Jane, meanwhile, was in the English National Ballet and is now a pilates instructor in Market Harborough.
Did he inherit the dancing genes? “Obviously they wanted me to do ballet as a kid, and I did a few times – but I hated it!” Fletcher admits. “Anything to do with the stage or performing wasn’t for me.”
That is not strictly true. Fletcher, it turns out, paid for his first boat with money earned from acting in The Bill, although he says he was “only three or four” when he did it and quit showbiz soon after. “They wanted me to do more but my mum was against it,” he says. “Sliding doors!”
Sitting in a room of the Ineos base in Barcelona, overlooking the boat shed, Fletcher laughs. He is aware that his childhood, and route into sailing, was rather unusual. But he has not spoken much about it before. Although he was a hugely successful Olympic sailor, winning gold in the 49er in Tokyo alongside Stu Bithell, Olympic sailing pales in comparison with the America’s Cup for media attention.
If Ainslie’s team do make next month’s 37th America’s Cup match against defenders New Zealand – and despite a defeat by Alinghi on Monday in very light winds, they should still advance to the challenger final at 4-1 up in a first-to-five series – Fletcher can expect to be repeating his back story a lot in the coming weeks.
Fletcher learnt to sail when the family moved from Thames Ditton to Market Harborough when he was a boy. “Mum and Dad put me on a summer course at Pitsford reservoir, Northampton Sailing Club,” he recalls. “That’s where I started. But I was relatively late coming into the Olympic programme. I didn’t start racing until I was 13.”
He made up for lost time. After buying his first boat (“I really wanted a quad bike. Like most boys, I had delusions of being a Formula One driver.”) Fletcher progressed swiftly through the ranks – 405s, 29ers, then 49ers, finishing sixth in Rio with Alan Sign before that gold in Tokyo, which was decided by a photo finish.
By a happy coincidence, Fletcher and Bithell beat Emirates Team New Zealand’s double America’s Cup winners Peter Burling and Blair Tuke to silver in Enoshima. Perhaps he already holds an Indian sign over them? “Ha,” he says. “I don’t know about that. But their path to the America’s Cup definitely inspired me. Ultimately, one of the reasons I did a lot of Moth sailing after Tokyo [Fletcher won the world title in the foiling dinghy class in 2022], and pushed hard at that, is because of Pete [Burling], Nathan [Outteridge], Tommy [Slingsby] and Goody [Paul Goodison]. They all won Moth world championships. They’re all Olympic gold medallists. And now they’re all helming AC boats.
“I was like: ‘Right, now I’ve won an Olympic gold I need to go and win a Moth world title, because I want to be an America’s Cup helm.’”
Still, to say Fletcher’s promotion to co-helm on Britannia caught outsiders by surprise would be an understatement. Scott is, after all, a double Olympic champion himself, and far more experienced in this world. No one saw it coming.
It seems Fletcher’s persistence and doggedness have been rewarded. He reckons he sent Ainslie “about a text message a month until Ben finally relented” and brought him into the team.
Initially, he wondered whether he might have been brought in to helm the British SailGP boat when Ainslie and Scott were busy with the America’s Cup, which he did in the first season of the series before Ainslie bought the team. But gradually, he made himself indispensable. From helming the second AC40 when Ineos were two-boat testing earlier this year, to his work in the simulator with Ainslie and Scott. Colleagues talk about his constant thirst for knowledge, and energy. Ainslie has credited him for introducing the system of communication Fletcher developed with Bithell in the 49er.
Naturally, Fletcher feels huge sympathy for Scott, who did nothing wrong. But he is grateful for the latter’s support. “Giles is basically the best coach we could have,” he says. “He has a really good eye for seeing the differences on other teams and how that can help us.”
But mostly, he is just buzzing for himself. “It’s incredible,” he says. “When Ben called me into his office and told me I would be co-helm, I was pretty nervous, just going out sailing the next day, the weight of expectation on my shoulders. To be alongside Ben Ainslie? The greatest Olympic sailor of all time? I really felt the weight on my shoulders.
“But yeah, I feel like our partnership is growing. I’m learning from him all the time and I feel like I understand what he wants from a communication point of view.”
And what is that? “I’m happy to make a decision,” Fletcher says. “It might not be what Ben would do, and he might not be happy about it, but it’s the best decision I can make based on the information I have. But mostly, I’m feeding him. Obviously he has a lot more match racing experience than I do. And I think it can be dangerous to have… you’ve got two helms, you can’t have a committee meeting for every decision. You’ve got to have one person generally leading the decisions. And that’s Ben.”
It seems to be working. If Fletcher can help Britain to pirouette from a shaky preliminary regatta to a glorious swansong in Barcelona, he will have done his parents proud.