Cornish Olympic gold medal-winning sailor, Ben Ainslie, has loaned his victorious Finn dinghy, in which he competed at the Athens Games, to the Maritime Museum in Falmouth. The Finn has gone on display in the main Flotilla gallery alongside Ainslie’s gold medal-winning Laser dinghy from the Sydney Olympic Games.

Ainslie dominated the field in Athens and despite his controversial disqualification in the second race of the competition, he managed to repeat his Sydney Olympic triumph with four victories, two second places, a third and a fourth – finishing the tournament with 38 points, 13 ahead of his nearest rival and taking the second Olympic Gold Medal of his career.

Talking about his collection of boats at the Museum, Ainslie says: “When I sailed around the area as a child, I never knew that Falmouth would have a museum dedicated to the sport I love, let alone that I would be a double Olympic champion. It is such an honour to have the Laser and the Finn side by side in my county’s very own Maritime Museum.”

The Finn will be on display at the Maritime Museum until the start of the summer. After mid-June the Finn will have ‘gone racing’ when Ainslie takes it away to compete in the Finn European Championship in Sweden and the World Championships in Moscow.