WITH Great Britain and New Zealand facing off for the 37th Americas Cup, a little known Isle of Wight sailor and Olympian is poised to etch his name into the local, British and global sailing history books.
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Island-born Leigh McMillian is the flight controller on board British hopefuls, team INEOS Britannia, which performed remarkably in the Louis Vuitton Cup final to beat much-fancied Italian team, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, in a closely contested series.
In doing so, Britannia earned the right to face Emirates Team New Zealand — the first British team in 60 years to compete for the trophy — with all the action in the waters of Port Olimpic, in Barcelona, set to start today (Saturday).
Leigh, like all his crewmates, have vital roles to perform and will need to be at his very best, to beat the Americas Cup holders.
Sir Ben Ainslie, the team's skipper, said: "Leigh is one of the most talented sailors we have in the UK, across a range of different boats — particularly high performance boats.
Read more: Isle of Wight sailor all set for 37th Americas Cup showdown
"Leigh has a really good feel for the dynamics of the boat and for foiling.
"When it comes to the racing itself, with that experience and having the real desire to be successful and for the team to be successful, are the key reasons we have Leigh in our team."
The 43-year-old was born at St Mary's Hospital, Newport, and attended Shalfleet Primary School, Ryde School and Brockenhurst College, before going on to study product design and engineering at Portsmouth University.
Living in the West Wight, Leigh cut his teeth in sailing on the River Yar, with both the Yarmouth and Gurnard Sailing Clubs, in the Optimist and Topper dinghy classes.
Later that same year, he began sailing a Hobie 16 catamaran.
His dad, Mike, said: "Although he didn’t know it at the time, it was to be the most influential move in his sailing career to date."
"He was selected in his first year to represent the UK at the Youth Worlds in South Africa and finished a creditable sixth.
Read more: Isle of Wight sailor one win from 37th Americas Cup final
"Following this, he made the move into the Olympic Tornado Multihull and finished his first season as the training partner at the Olympics in Sydney."
Leigh progressed into the RYA World-Class Performance Sailing Team, during the 2001 World Championships. The subsequent eight years of campaigning resulted in him being selected to represent Team GB at two Olympic Games in 2004/2008 and achieving two World Championship Silver Medals.
During the nine years he spent training for the Olympics, he developed a number of skills — the most fundamental of these around the development work undertaken for the Tornado.
The big takeaway was the campaigning process and having the best management plan, which was vitally important to success.
"Being able to prioritise, is a skill he has continued to refine from managing his own sailing campaigns," Mike adds.
In 2014, he was officially crowned the most successful skipper in the nine-year history of the Extreme Sailing Series, when he clinched an unprecedented three championship titles.
The following year, Leigh joined Sir Ben Ainslie as back up helm for Land Rover BAR, the British challenger for the 35th America's Cup in 2017.
The last America's Cup series was in New Zealand in 2021. Leigh was once more racing with Ben as flight controller in the newly-configured radical mono hull, flying on a single foil.
Four years later, and on a considerably more refined version of the same concept boat, and just having won the Louis Vuitton Cup, they now face the holders, New Zealand in the America's Cup.
The competition runs until October 21 and can be viewed on TNT Sports.
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