“If someone gave you a lottery ticket with a 33 % chance of winning $2m, you’d snap their hand off!” said Dylan Fletcher, helmsman of the Emirates Great Britain Team during last weekend’s SailGP Grand Finale in Abu Dhabi.

And certainly for a lot of the Mubadala Abu Dhabi Sail Grand Prix Season Grand Final – an event title which took almost as long to say as it took the F50s to get to the top mark – luck seemed to be playing a significant part in results, with zephyr-light winds and exceptionally short course plunging the season’s most consistent performers down the leaderboard.

At first watch even the final looked to come down to a ‘Hail Mary’ decision when the British team, who were third – or last – off the line split from the leading duo of Australia’s Bonds Flying Roos and New Zealand Black Foils to hook into a convenient shift and come out on top.

But, as Fletcher explains, that’s not quite how it happened.

Photo: c/o Emirates GBR

SailGP leaders play it safe

Abu Dhabi was a new venue for the SailGP final, previously in San Francisco, and first impressions frankly weren’t great. Racing on the first day took place in very light winds – often just 5-7 knots – with the teams deploying the newest 27.5 wing rig, extra large light wind T-foils and just three crew onboard to make racing feasible in the very marginal conditions.

Fortunately the waters off Port Zayed were undisturbed – there was a notable lack of spectator boats. The race village was also smaller than some previous venues, with no giant grandstand packed with the roaring crowds of Auckland or Portsmouth. This was not a showcase of the stadium-filling, crowd-pleasing racing that SailGP can deliver – though it was a marker of the financial appeal of the league, with the event sponsored by the Sports Council of Abu Dhabi.

In the light, sub-foiling conditions and super-short courses, winning the start became everything, with Denmark, Switzerland and Germany having the best of the first day. At the end of four races three of the the top four teams – Emirates SailGP, Australia and Spain – were the sitting firmly in the bottom four on the leaderboard. The Kiwis only slightly redeemed themselves in 8th.

What, I asked Dylan, was going on?

“I think, honestly, you could have called it before the event,” Fletcher says.

Article continues below…

British star, Dylan Fletcher on jumping straight to the top of the SailGP leaderboard

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Dylan Fletcher-Scott Britain’s 2024 America’s Cup skipper

Dylan Fletcher-Scott is no stranger to high-stakes sailing. But even this Olympic gold medalist will be feeling the pressure as…

“There was a lot of teams who had couldn’t go up or down in the season championship; the points were basically closed off. Then you also had a bunch of teams changing people. And they were going to take risk. They were going to push it really hard.

“And I think we were all just so focused on doing what we needed to do to get into the Grand Final. As soon as it was that light, in reality, we want to win the actual Abu Dhabi event itself – but actually we don’t really care! We just want to make sure that we win the season points. So we inevitably ended up watching the other boats.

“We stopped taking as much risks as you don’t want to crash. We saw that the Kiwis got a rudder written off because the Swiss just sailed into them. And the Italians nearly took our rudder off with their foil. So there’s no wind, and there’s all these other boats pushing it, effectively.

“But it was funny, wasn’t it? It was like, oh, we’ve had a worst day of the entire year, but so have the other top four. So it doesn’t matter.”

Photo: c/o Emirates GBR

The British had effectively pre-booked their slot in the Grand Final, though there was still a chance for the Spanish to fight their way back in. “I think the Spanish will feel obviously annoyed they didn’t make it, but the opportunity was there. All the other teams are doing terribly. They just needed to have a normal day and they would have been in very good shape!” points out Fletcher.

Super SailGP Sunday

On Sunday there was slightly more breeze nudging the F50s back up onto their foils and four crew back on board. Fletcher and the British squad came out firing, winning the first race. Was there a big team talk to reset the night before?

“I think we were very pragmatic about it, as we always are. We know that in reality, not foiling H2 [mode, two hulls in the water] there’s always more jeopardy, there’s more luck. You just got to do things a bit differently.

“[For Sunday] we came up with a different starting strategy. And from looking at the data on the other boats, came up with some things to make the boat go faster if we weren’t foiling. Although it was obviously foiling conditions, but we did actually adopt that start approach for the first two starts. I think there’s no doubt that our team is more comfortable when we’re foiling. And I think it showed on that Sunday.”

The teams had sailed with both the larger wings and foils previously, but not together. “It was new for the event. So we’d got one day. We’d used the foils before – they were from Geneva, and we used them in Cadiz. So [the change] was mainly the weight and the extra power of the 27.5m wing. You feel the extra weight, and it changes some of the moding. Once foiling, it’s a little more similar. But you do end up sailing a little higher, slower upwinds, and a little lower and slower downwind, basically.”

Sailing the F50s three-up also requires some ninja-levels of multi-tasking. “There are certain manoeuvres which you can’t do or it gets exceptionally challenging. And four people is a lot easier than three. Having someone to be able to grind, and then having effectively the pilot back to being a pilot really makes a difference.”

Photo: c/o Emirates GBR

The $2m lottery

On the live broadcast on Day 2 Fletcher made a comment to his crew about the ‘lottery’ conditions. The SailGP commentary team took umbrage, but there was clearly a roll the dice element to the course.

“I guess there’s always an element of luck, and yes, it’s probably a little bit larger [in those conditions]. But interestingly or not, we had the best finish positions. You could have scored it any way the entire year, and we would have won. So there is a lot of jeopardy in that final race – and I think I said on the start of the final, ‘Welcome to the $2 million lottery’.

“But the idea behind that was that, yes, we won the points season. And yes, we’re sailing very well. But just because of that, that doesn’t mean that we are in any better position than the other two boats.

“If someone handed you a lottery ticket with a 33% chance of winning, you’d snap their hand off. So it’s just trying to see it as a massive opportunity and be open to enjoy it, basically. Enjoy it.”

Photo: c/o Emirates GBR

Getting angry

But the fluky conditions didn’t play to everybody’s strengths. How hard was it for Dylan and co to keep their head in the game with this level of unpredictability?

“I think that was a real testament to the team on Saturday. We had obviously a challenging day. And we were still the same team. We were still smiling. We didn’t fall out. We weren’t getting angry… other people from some of the other teams were getting quite angry! And we didn’t get angry.

“I think that’s why I think we won, because of that is how our team operates. And we consistently are able to continue to solve the problem. We’ve had bad times this year, in America, where we didn’t do a very good job of that. And the results followed, basically, because we weren’t doing a very good job as a team.

“And I think that’s what I’m really proud of how the team operated.”

Final showdown

In the final itself it all seemed to come down to one key manoeuvre. GBR lagged off the start, then split at the leeward mark. But that decision was far from a fluke, Fletcher explains.

“We’d been working on it for seven weeks on how to win the Grand Final.

“For the start, we obviously didn’t want to be late, but we did want that approach. We just were trying to be on time. And we were happy to throw some risk at potentially being late. But we’d done a lot of analysis on, ‘Okay, well, if we don’t lead at Mark 1, what’s our next opportunity?.’

Photo: c/o Emirates GBR

“We’d already discussed that we wanted to take the right turn at the bottom, if nothing had changed significantly from the racing beforehand. So we set ourselves up deliberately early on that gybe out to get a really good fast layline into the bottom. The Kiwis went round, but they were really slow. And we’d practised that ‘JK’ [manoeuvre] in some of the races, actually. So we’d set that up.

“Effectively we were using some of the fleet racing to try and practise a few things that we might do. So I felt pretty – not happy, but I felt very much when we went around the leeward and tacked, it was, okay, all the boats are level at this point. It’s completely even.

“I was actually surprised we weren’t further ahead. When we tacked back onto starboard, and the Kiwis were on port, I thought we would potentially be ahead. I was kind of annoyed that we weren’t, to be honest! But we also had decided that, again, if nothing had changed, we wanted the right turn at the top. So how we tried to orchestrate that up the beat [was] to be out of phase, set up for the right turn at the top with the other boats probably having to take the left, and they would have a difficult decision to make.

“That’s the key for me. They had a difficult decision if they wanted to take the right turn off us. And to be honest, as soon as we bore away, I was like, ‘it’s ours to lose’, because we took the bias mark and we were already faster.”

Photo: c/o Emirates GBR

Fletcher’s make or break moment

To go from new ‘driver’ to SailGP champion is a remarkable feat. What were the team performance goals when he took over the wheel a year ago?

“It was to be in the Grand Final. So it was to win, but the actual goal was always get in the grand final.

“I’ve still been nicely… maybe surprised isn’t the right way of putting it, but I always felt like in my career, when I’ve been doing well, you’re not expecting it. You know you’re capable of it, but you don’t think it’s just going to happen. You always feel slightly on edge. I very much felt like that this whole year. And the team has just done a good job of learning all the new kit and giving me the opportunity to make mistakes, having come back in.

“I felt as though after America, then when we came to Portsmouth, I thought that was make a break for me, that event. If we didn’t go and get on the podium there – or maybe not even on the podium, but if we didn’t have a very good event, get the team back together, then that would be it. We would just be in the middle. So delivering there [was key]. And then I think also delivering in Sassnitz after the disappointment of getting the boat cut in half and everything, and the team really pulled together.

Photo: c/o Emirates GBR

The biggest prize in sailing

SailGP’s famous $2 Million final prize is a great headline. But how important is it for Fletcher to be racing for serious cash?

“I think it is important, but I also think that we all care more about beating the others than the money. Yeah, the money is great, don’t be wrong. It’s obviously lovely. But the reality is, you just want to beat the others.

“I think Jensen Button said one time, all he wanted to be was an F1 world champion, and he’d trade everything. He didn’t care about his salary, he just wanted to win, be a world champion.

“I think that it’s a good amount of money in terms of it does raise the stakes, it does change people’s decision making. It adds quite a lot of extra spice effectively to it.

“But I also would probably say I’d like to see a bit more money for the season points because that is the traditionalist in me, that still thinks that valuing the points over the entire season is – maybe not more worthy because this is SailGP and SailGP has always been about winning that grand final. But the [overall] points to me is also quite important.”

Fletcher’s winners’ Rolex watch, however, is treasured. “I’ve been trying to win one of these for 37 years!” he jokes as he tried it on.

Photo: c/o Emirates GBR

Transfer season

The flip side of all the money apparently sloshing around is SailGP are trying to ramp up interest in their ‘transfer season’. Have the Brits guys put a target on their backs for being poached?

“People have been chasing!” He laughs. “But Ben’s done a good job and we’re in a really good shape going forward. And I think that as people are getting longer contracts and getting locked in a bit more, to be honest.

SailGP now has a brief ‘off-season’ before the 2026 circuit kicks off in Perth in January.

“It’s six weeks to the next event. It’s less time between the Grand Final and the first event of the season than it was between Cadiz and Abu Dhabi,” points out Fletcher.

Though the break is welcome, “We’d rather be sailing!” He says, adding, “I guess for myself, because I’m still new into it.

“Experience means that when you take a break, you come back and you’re still at that same level. So I work quite hard, do what I can between the events to try and ensure that I’m as sharp as I can be. Even before the Grand Final, I was Moth sailing, 49er racing, and just doing anything.”

It’s a fair bet Fletcher will be coming back sharp and hungry in January.

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The post How the Brits won SailGP: Dylan Fletcher’s full debrief appeared first on Yachting World.

The SailGP Grand Final is the climax to the racing season, and fans worldwide will be looking to tune in. The ultimate winner-takes-all race is set to take place at the Mubadala Abu Dhabi Sail Grand Prix on November 29-30, 2025.

SailGP Grand Final Race Schedule

The race times for both days of the SailGP Grand Final event are consistent. The main event action, including the decisive winner-takes-all final race, will take place during the 14:00 – 15:30 GST window on Sunday, November 30.

• Local Abu Dhabi Time (GST, GMT+4): 14:00 – 15:30 GST (Saturday and Sunday)
• UK Time (GMT): 10:00 – 11:30 AM (Saturday and Sunday)
• France / Italy (CET): 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM (Sunday)
• New York, USA (EST): 05:00 – 06:30 AM (Sunday)
• Sydney, Australia (AEDT): 09:00 – 10:30 PM (Sunday)

Free Viewing Options & Geo-Restrictions

SailGP has a strong history of offering free coverage through digital platforms, but this is subject to local broadcast rights.

SailGP App: The official SailGP app (available on Apple and Android) often features live racing and replays. Access to the live feed is typically geo-blocked in territories where exclusive broadcasters (like TNT Sports in the UK or Sky Italia in Italy) have paid for the exclusive live rights.

YouTube & Facebook: Live streaming is commonly available on the official SailGP YouTube and Facebook channels in countries without an exclusive live broadcaster. Countries like the US and Canada have often enjoyed free live streams on YouTube, while countries like the UK might see restrictions due to their paid-for exclusive TV deals.

Free-to-Air Channels: In some territories, SailGP airs on free platforms. For example, in Australia, live races are often available on Kayo Freebies (a free tier of the Kayo Sports streaming service) and sometimes on SBS (which may show highlights or select live races).

Where can you watch the SailGP finale?

• United Kingdom: TNT Sports (discovery+ streaming). TNT Sports is the exclusive live home for all events in the UK and Ireland for the 2025 season. This is a paywall service.
• United States: CBS and CBS Sports Network. Live coverage is typically featured on CBS Sports Network, with free live digital streams often available via the official SailGP App or YouTube (check local listings).
• Australia: Fox Sports and Kayo Freebies. Fox Sports provides subscription coverage, and select events are also available on the free-to-air platform Kayo Freebies.
• Canada: TSN and RDS. TSN covers the English broadcast, and RDS handles the French-language coverage.
• Italy: Sky Italia. Sky Italia is a long-standing partner and is expected to provide live coverage of the season finale.
• France: Canal+ Sport. Canal+ Sport typically provides live and delayed coverage for fans of the French team.
• Spain: RTVE and TV3 (in Catalonia), as well as Movistar Plus+ (on Deportes 3)
• Germany: ZDF (with a new multi-season partnership for the 2025 season)

How to watch SailGP from Anywhere Using a VPN

You don’t need to worry about missing any of the high-speed action, even if you’re travelling overseas while the races are taking place.

By using a VPN (or Virtual Private Network), you can avoid the geo-blocking restrictions that might otherwise get in the way of watching your usual streaming services or accessing the free live feeds when you’re in another country.

How a VPN Helps: VPNs have the useful ability to change your IP address, making your laptop, smartphone, or tablet appear to be back home. This means you can tune into the event, even when you’re thousands of miles away from your sitting room. If you are in a country with a restricted feed (like the UK or Italy), connecting to a VPN server in a country that offers a free YouTube stream (such as the US or Canada) can potentially allow you to watch the Grand Final for free.

There are plenty of VPNs out there, but the tech experts at TechRadar and Tom’s Guide both believe that NordVPN is top of the world rankings, with top-notch streaming and security features, a 30-day money-back guarantee, and a great deal this Black Friday…

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Final Viewing Tip

Due to the dynamic nature of broadcast agreements, the most definitive source for “How to Watch” in any specific country will always be the official SailGP website’s dedicated ‘How to Watch’ page closer to the event date. This page provides the final, up-to-date listings for every region.

The post How to watch the SailGP 2025 Final: All the TV & streaming details for the final appeared first on Yachting World.

Nathan Outteridge, undisputedly one of the best foiling sailors of his generation, is re-entering SailGP as helmsman for the newly announced Swedish Artemis Racing team.

The Swedish Artemis entry becomes the 13th team to join the multi-stage, travelling stadium race series.

Artemis Racing will be led by CEO Iain Percy, himself also an Olympic gold medallist and previously Artemis Racing’s Team Manager during their America’s Cup campaigns.

Nathan Outteridge (left) with Iain Percy CEO of Artemis SailGP Team and Russell Coutts (right), CEO of SailGP at the Artemis team announcement during the Rolex Switzerland Sail Grand Prix in Geneva. Photo: Felix Diemer/SailGP

Outteridge back in SailGP

Outteridge’s return to SailGP will be much welcomed, as one of the biggest talents in the sport right now.

His appointment pits three of the four finalist helmsmen in the 38th America’s Cup  against each other in the foiling catamaran league. Outteridge was co-helm to the Black Foils’ Pete Burling on the winning Emirates Team New Zealand AC75 last year, beating Ben Ainslie and Dylan Fletcher on INEOS Britannia, who currently manage and helm the GBR F50 respectively.

In the past two years Ainslie and former US skipper Jimmy Spithill stood down from racing in SailGP to take management roles, so the return of more Cup sailors with real star power will be a big boost for the circuit.

Nathan Outteridge (crouching) and Pete Burling celebrate after winning the America’s Cup in 2024 for Emirates Team New Zealand. Photo: David Ramos/Getty Images

Outteridge, who is Australian, is also a double Olympic medallist, winning a gold in 2012 and silver in 2016 in the 49er class.

However, his SailGP career has not gone entirely smoothly. As helmsman and team boss for the Japan SailGP Team in Seasons 1 & 2 he delivered great results on the water, but the team was unable to attract sufficient commercial backing and had their boat reallocated to other teams, before being dropped from the league by founders – and funders – Larry Ellison and Russell Coutts.

Since then he has raced and coached other crews, but has not skippered a team for a full season, and took some time out to go cruising with his family.

Nathan Outteridge helms the Japan SailGP Team during a practice session in Season 2. Photo: Bob Martin/SailGP

Of his return to the global racing championship, Outteridge said, “Reuniting with Iain, Torbjörn and the Artemis team for this new chapter in SailGP is incredibly exciting. We’ve shared huge moments together in the past, and bringing that experience, trust and energy into this arena gives us a powerful foundation.

“This is a new challenge for all of us – a chance to showcase what Swedish sailing can achieve in one of the toughest and fastest stages in the world. We’re approaching this season with focus, ambition and the belief that we can set the standard for what’s possible in this championship.”

Swedish Artemis Racing

Artemis Racing has a huge history in cutting-edge racing. The team is backed by Torbjörn Törnqvist, a Swedish billionaire and passionate sailor who has raced in highly competitive classes such as the RC44s and TP52s (in which he won the World Championships and Med Cup with SailGP founder Russell Coutts as tactician).

Törnqvist founded the Artemis Racing America’s Cup team, which competed in several America’s Cups – including in 2013 and 2017 – with Percy and Outteridge on the crew.

Most recently Sweden challenged for the Youth and Women’s America’s Cups as an ‘invited’ team, finishing fourth in both.

Nathan Outteridge spent time as co-driver and sailing advisor t0 the Switzerland SailGP Team in 2022. Photo: Jon Buckle/SailGP

The Artemis SailGP Team will join the Rolex SailGP Championship for 2026, the sixth season of SailGP which opens in January 2026 in Perth, Australia

Artemis SailGP Team CEO Iain Percy commented: “I’m proud to lead the Artemis SailGP Team as we return to the global stage with a clear focus – leveraging cutting-edge technology, a world-class line up, and the hard-won lessons from America’s Cup.

“SailGP is redefining the sport with unmatched speed, innovation, and fan engagement. Bringing Sweden into this elite championship is a milestone we’re proud of, and we’re determined to compete at the very highest level – pushing boundaries both on and off the water.”

The post Outteridge back in SailGP as Sweden become 13th nation to join foiling league appeared first on Yachting World.

The hotly anticipated British leg of the SailGP circuit, the Emirates Great Britain Sail Grand Prix in Portsmouth, takes place this weekend from 19-20 July.

Twelve F50s will be racing on a tight racecourse just off Southsea, with an enormous grandstand in the race village expected to welcome 20,000 spectators over the weekend.

Weather conditions look promising, with 8-16 knots forecast for Saturday 19, and a punchy 16-26 knots possible for Sunday.

Strong breezes are forecast for Day 2 of the British SailGP in Portsmouth. Photo: Ricardo Pinto/SailGP

SailGP CEO Russell Coutts commented: “10 years ago I wouldn’t have said this [20,000-strong crowd] was likely, but we obviously set the tone in Auckland, where we had a similar size crowd on shore, and we’re absolutely thrilled to have that sort of support here in Portsmouth.

“I think fans are in for a great event – especially on Sunday, when the breeze is going to be up, they’re probably going to be on that small wing foil configuration. And who knows, they might hit that new speed record.”

Sail GP obstacle course

For added jeopardy, the course area – always intentionally tight at Sail GP events – is likely to include several immovable obstacles – potentially including Spitbank Fort, one of Portsmouth’s famous sea defences, and shipping lane markers. A substantial exclusion zone will be in place from 2pm each day in the busy eastern Solent.

The Auckland SailGP set a new bar for crowd numbers – organisers will be hoping for 20,000 spectators at Portsmouth this weekend.

Giles Scott, who helms the Canada SailGP team commented: “I think the waters here are going to be an amazing racecourse. There will be some obstacles to dodge – may be a fort, some navy posts. So there is a lot going on, but it’s going to be an amazing venue.

Dylan Fletcher, helmsman of the Emirates Great Britain team, told Yachting World: “It’s an interesting race course – which if it gets the green light could add a curve ball! Not so much the marks, more the proximity of the start line to the shore!”

The huge grandstand under construction in Portsmouth for the Emirates Great Britain Sail Grand Prix. Photo: Yachting World

Tom Slingsby, team boss and helmsman of the Australian BONDS Flying Roos SailGP team, cautioned that with added spectacle, comes added risk for the teams. He told Yachting World: “Some of the Sail GP race tracks have had a few obstacles – Cadiz has a reef. But I’d say this is probably the most obstacles we’ve had, and probably the biggest one with the fort.

“Honestly, we’re going to have to go away and brush up on our rules when approaching an obstacle and who gains right of way and how. I’m going to go and brush up on that stuff. But other than that I’m pretty confident.

“Sometimes when you’ve got obstacles on the course the drivers just need to have a little level of respect that – I might have right of way here, but if I keep pushing this there’s going to be a nasty crash, and back out of the situation. It’s not nice to back out of a situation because it doesn’t help your race result, but we also need to have a level of understanding that these boats are dangerous and if we push the situation too hard where it might not be your boat, but another boat might have an incident. You’ve got to have enough common sense.

“The penalty points work for boat on boat situations, but often we’re coming into a situation and there’s five boats coming in and one boat might have right of way and exercise that right, but in doing that can cause a collision between others.

“Whether the rules need to adapt more for these sorts of racecourses or this type of racing, we’ve got to keep looking at that because these boots, when they hit, can be catastrophic and very dangerous.”

Pressure on British SailGP team

There was much talk in the press conference about the potential home advantage for the British team.

Emirates Great Britain SailGP team CEO Ben Ainslie commented: “People talk about pressure in sport, and it’s definitely an added pressure when you see tens of thousands of people there all expecting the home team to win, that’s frankly a little bit intimidating. But we also say pressure is a privilege and I think Dylan, Hannah and the team will thrive off that.”

Emirates Great Britain SailGP Team won the KPMG Australia Sail Grand Prix in Sydney, but have struggled to get on the podium in more recent events. Photo: Jason Ludlow/SailGP

For the British squad, however, it’s not just the home crowd that’s piling on the pressure – after a near perfect start to the season, the Emirates Great Britain Sail Grand Prix team has dropped to fourth overall, finishing the previous event in New York in eighth, following a seventh in San Francisco and fourth in Los Angeles.

“Ultimately we had a really good start to the season, but I’m still inexperienced, explained helmsman Dylan Fletcher.

“I think we saw some cracks appear in San Fran, so we’ve put some things and processes in place so hopefully we won’t see those again.”

Tom Slingsby, driver of BONDS Flying Roos SailGP Team. Photo: Andrew Baker/SailGP

He explained further, telling Yachting World: “In LA we had a bad first day but a good second day, and we were one point away from the final, so it’s not really a bad event, it’s just the margins are super-tight.

“I think San Francisco was the one we were a bit surprised about, we went there with high expectations – probably too high expectations. We made some mistakes, and then didn’t quite rectify those mistakes.

“In New York we spent a lot of time on debriefing and we were in good spirits, but sailing three-up was really a curve ball that I’d never done before. And part of think the problem was the way that we sail the boat four-up was little bit different to some of the others and that exposed some errors. But in reality there was just two decisions or mistakes that day that cost the difference between in the hunt and not, and Sunday we had a top three day. So it looked really bad on paper, but it’s not quite so bad.

“And we had a really unfortunate incident with the Canadians that cost us a season point, the umpire have said they got the call wrong, but ultimately we have to bear that.

“But we’ve spent a lot of time watching videos of the others teams, and they’re not doing anything special, they’re not doing anything we’re not doing. They’re making plenty of mistakes and that’s the nature of SailGP, you’ve just got to keep fighting for every point.”

More to come?

So, if each team is still making mistakes – how much potential is there still to come from the F50s?

“There’s plenty [of room to improve],” says Fletcher. “You can see when we’re all in our own space, we’re all sailing the boat quite well, but sailing them at that level all the time is another thing – especially the start. You see some teams start really well one event and sometimes really bad, so being consistent there will deliver the results.”

Tom Slingsby agreed: “There’s still a huge amount of potential there. These boots are incredibly difficult to sail, and no one is sailing a perfect race.

“Compared to when I used to sail my Laser I think I got a lot closer to 100% than I ever have in a SailGP race. The difficulty of the boots, the co-ordination of the team – just everything coming into it. the top teams might not even be at 90%.”

The post Sail GP Portsmouth set for full-on Solent ‘obstacle course’ appeared first on Yachting World.

In the latest episode of SailGP docuseries Racing on the Edge, tennis champion and sporting icon Roger Federer trades sporting wisdom with Swiss SailGP driver Sébastien Schneiter.

Produced in partnership with Rolex, Racing on the Edge offers official behind-the-scenes footage of Switzerland SailGP Team. Each episode gives insider access to rivalries, team personalities, and the extraordinary sportsmanship of the Rolex SailGP Championship.

Switzerland SailGP Team helmed by Sebastien Schneiter on Race Day 1 of the Rolex Los Angeles Sail Grand Prix held in the Port of Los Angeles, California, USA. Saturday 15 March 2025. Photo: Jason Ludlow for SailGP.

The latest in Racing on the Edge

The latest episode of Racing on the Edge, available to watch starting Monday 30 June, follows Schneiter as he takes charge of his country’s team ahead of the 2025 Season. In a bid to turn around the team’s performance, he overhauls the Swiss team and replaces all but one of its crew.

But starting from scratch proves to be a daunting undertaking.

To help Schneiter get to grips with his newfound responsibility and face the mental and emotional pressure of leading a high-level team, former team CEO Tanguy Cariou sends him to Zurich for a surprise meeting with Swiss tennis legend Roger Federer.

Sebastien Schneiter, driver of Switzerland SailGP Team on Race Day 1 of the KPMG Australia Sail Grand Prix in Sydney, Australia. Photo: Ricardo Pinto for SailGP.

Roger Federer meets SailGP in Racing on the Edge

Federer offers Schneiter valuable advice on appreciating how far he’s come as a sportsman, and getting the right angle on the view from the top.

“You need those moments where all of a sudden you feel like you’re entering the top ten or you become top five in the world and you start truly believing that you can do it,” Federer explains. “I knew I was on the right path, but there were still doubts that I was going abut my life and my game the right way.”

Tennis champion Roger Federer. Photo: Getty Images.

He’s well aware of how leadership can be its own particular challenges. As a driver, he councils, “You are a decision maker, which is a privilege – not everybody gets to make decisions in life or in your field, so try to turn it into a positive.”

Their motivational meeting proves to be a turning point.

Schneiter returns to the water, this time for a race weekend in San Francisco, with a new spring in his step. Helped by a wave of fresh confidence, the Swiss team changes their performance trajectory, despite ultimately missing out on the final.

Tune into Racing on the Edge for the inside scoop on this poignant encounter between the top level sportsmen.

Switzerland SailGP Team helmed by Sebastien Schneiter in action on Race Day 2 of The Rolex SailGP 2025 Championship ITM New Zealand Sail Grand Prix in Auckland, New Zealand. Sunday 19 January 2025. Photo: Ricardo Pinto for SailGP.

Next up for SailGP

Next up for SailGP is the Emirates Great Britain Sail Gran Prix | Portsmouth on July 19-20. The seventh stop of the Rolex Sail Grand Prix Championship’s 2025 season. Visit SailGP.com/portsmouth for tickets and more information.

Later in the season, catch the Swiss team at the Rolex Switzerland Sail Grand Prix | Geneva will take place on September 20-21, the 10th stop of the 2025 season. Visit SailGP.com/switzerland for tickets and more information.

If you enjoyed this article on Racing on the Edge….

Yachting World is the world’s leading magazine for bluewater cruisers and offshore sailors. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams.

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The post Roger Federer featured in SailGP docuseries ‘Racing on the Edge’ appeared first on Yachting World.

If you ride an e-bike you’ll be used to being called a cheat. You’ll also be familiar with the way opinion has polarised in the cycling world on their benefits versus downfalls, particularly where there has been criticism from walkers who blame e-powered mountain bike riders for ripping up the countryside.

But what a game-changer they are, allowing you to explore further afield while making it more fun for those who’d otherwise be at the back of the pack.

Now, think about what might happen if sailing went down a similar route? If we thought that the foiling debate had stirred things up, just wait until the issue of powered race boats gets under the sailing public’s skin.

Because the next hot topic that the racing world looks set to grapple with is arguably even bigger. How much power can you use aboard a boat before it strays beyond the definition of sailing? Should electrical assistance be allowed at all? Some will doubtless argue that we shouldn’t even be talking about how much, as any assistance from power while racing is wrong.

Years ago, I remember being told by a fellow crew member about a rather unethical racing owner who was trying to convince the skipper and crew that running the engine in gear during a drifter of a race ‘just for a little bit’ was completely okay. He argued that it was fine as it would only be for a short distance and he promised he would switch it off as soon as they reached the little bit of wind that was currently out of their reach.

Article continues below…

‘The America’s Cup has always been pushing boundaries’ – Matt Sheahan

For a great pub quiz question, when was the first America’s Cup race? The answer to sailing fans is obvious:…

‘I don’t want to watch sailing with a calculator’ – Matthew Sheahan on Olympic Sailing for Spectators

How was your summer season? If you went to a major event like Olympic sailing, did you wonder where everyone…

For years, ‘just a little bit’ became the running joke aboard our boat when we were faced with the same lack of breeze or adverse tide. Clearly, turning the motor on is a ridiculous thought in sailing races. Or is it?

Last year SailGP revealed it was experimenting with an electric propulsion system that could provide a performance boost for teams to get their F50 cats back up onto their foils in light winds. On the face of it, a clever idea to help to keep the racing close and fair to all when the breeze is fickle and patchy.

When you look at the self-imposed tight two-day racing schedule and a small race course placed close to the shore to entertain the spectators in the stands it’s easy to understand why SailGP finds itself struggling with light shifty breezes so often. Add to this venues that don’t always provide clear breeze and it’s clear that developing bigger wing sails and lower drag foils have been a big plus for the racing.

Yet, while the F50s will fly in ludicrously light winds, when they do fall off the foils the races often become a lottery.

So, a little boost from some small, lightweight electric motors would keep the racing alive through the sticky patches. Controversial? Yes. But if the AC75s hadn’t been allowed to be towed up onto their foils before the start in the last Cup we’d have had a whole load of scores missing off the board. In the cruising world few think they are cheating if they motor-sail.

For all the thrill of the foiling racing, SailGP is much less adrenaline inducing in ‘low rider’ mode. Photo: SailGP

The power output of some of the small electric motors today is staggering and as batteries get more efficient the prospects of being able to do this are increasing.

The boat that got me thinking about how different the future might look when it came to electric power was the new Magic Carpet-e, which some are saying is the most advanced new Maxi to have been launched in many years. I spent a couple of days aboard this 100-footer and the electrical power system that drives the boat, the winches, the hydraulics – in fact everything – is fascinating. It’s a proof of technology on a scale I’ve not seen before in the sailing world.

While this is a boat that doesn’t seek to use her engine when racing she will be used actively as a cruising yacht as well and depend on her electric system for everything. Having experienced what an all-electric boat is like at this scale and seen the technology behind the scenes, I was not only blown away, but left thinking where the lessons learned may lead us.

In the meantime, while chatting to a few of the crew in the evening we got onto cycling. They told me about their road bikes with electric gears instead of cables and how it saved weight and made the gear changes much more efficient. I appreciate I’m behind the curve on this, but it seems small electric motors are weaving their way into life wherever we look.

Sailing could be next.

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Yachting World is the world’s leading magazine for bluewater cruisers and offshore sailors. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams.

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With Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds as its new co-owners and Australian underwear brand Bonds as a brand-spanking new sponsor, the Australian SailGP team is set to take centre stage.

Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds new co-owners

As co-owners, Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds will lead the freshly rebranded Bonds Flying Roos SailGP Team.

The announcement is already making headlines, but these seasoned showmen are no strangers to the limelight.

Or to cheeky marketing campaigns! They’ve collaborated on everything from movie to coffee to gin brands. Now, they’re spending millions to get into the sailing game.

In a joint statement, they’ve said, “We’re incredibly excited to set sail together in this new adventure. Hugh brings a deep love for and pride in his home country as well as being an avid fan of sailing. He will also be bringing his overly clingy emotional support human along for the ride. Apologies in advance to Australia. No comment on whether we’re writing this in our Bonds. No further questions.”

A warm welcome for Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds

The Australian SailGP team, now the ‘Bonds Flying Roos,’ are taking their victories with them into a new chapter.

With celebrity ownership and a fresh rebrand powered by Aussie-made Bonds underwear, the Roos are hoping to capture fan engagement well beyond the docks with the aim of reaching fresh audiences outside the sailing community.

Driver and CEO Tom Slingsby says of the new additions: “[Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds] bring unmatched star power, a love for storytelling, and a sharp sense of humour that fits perfectly with our team. With Bonds joining as our Title Partner and the launch of the Bonds Flying Roos, we’re building something distinctly Australian; a team driven by spirit, resilience, and national pride.”

Bonds Flying Roos Driver and co-owner Tom Slingsby.

Bonds, a new sponsor #Madefordownunder

Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds aren’t the only cheeky new addition to the Australian SailGP team. A new multi-year partnership with Aussie-made underwear brand Bonds marks the first time the Roos have had a Title Partner.

Previously, Bonds has sponsored another beloved Aussie icon, conservationist, TV presenter, and beloved Aussie icon Robert Irwin. They now bring their signature Aussie spirit to sailing.

Tanya Deans, President of Bonds Australia says, “We’re thrilled to join forces with such an iconic duo and an adrenaline-fueled sport ready for its moment in the spotlight. And how do you say no to Hugh Jackman? He’s Australian royalty! As we set sail on this new adventure, the Bonds Flying Roos have one less thing to worry about – we’ve got their backs (and bums) covered.”

But the SailGP team sure won’t be flying by the seat of their (Bonds) underpants. With three championships in four seasons, Australia has been dominating the SailGP scene.

An exciting new era for Australian sailing

Andy Thompson, SailGP Director said, “Today marks a landmark moment not just for the Australia SailGP Team, but for the trajectory of SailGP globally.” This exciting new partnership represents, “an extraordinary combination of global reach, vision, commercial nous and no doubt plenty of fun along the way too.”

The new Bonds Flying Roos SailGP Team will make their official debut at the Mubadala New York Sail Grand Prix from June 7-8, where they will have the chance to defend their leading position.

With Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds in their corner, the Australian SailGP team is sure to capture attention worldwide.

We can’t wait to see what hijinks the Roos and their new celebrity owners get up to!

If you enjoyed this….

Yachting World is the world’s leading magazine for bluewater cruisers and offshore sailors. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams.

Build your knowledge with a subscription delivered to your door. See our latest offers and save at least 30% off the cover price.

Note: We may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site, at no extra cost to you. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

The post Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds new co-owners of Australia’s SailGP team appeared first on Yachting World.

SailGP is about to kick off a US double-header, with back to back events in Los Angeles and San Francisco, starting in LA this weekend (March 15-16). Currently topping the leaderboard is Emirates GBR, ahead of previous series winners Australia and Spain.

It was little surprise that, after his history-making performance as co-helm to Ben Ainslie on INEOS Britannia in the 37th America’s Cup, the vacant helm seat on the British F50 catamaran went to Dylan Fletcher for the 2025 SailGP season.

Fletcher was originally the very first British SailGP helmsman (or ‘driver’, in SailGP parlance) having taken the wheel in the inaugural 2019 season. He was soon replaced by Ainslie, with a new team branded under INEOS sponsorship, and Fletcher didn’t return to the circuit as a sailor – though after last October’s Cup he told Yachting World that SailGP represented ‘unfinished business’.

After Ainslie retired from F50 sailing, and Giles Scott moved to the Canadian team, it was announced that Fletcher would helm, with Hannah Mills as strategist.

Fletcher and the British team hit the season running, taking podium finishes at the first two events in Dubai and an extremely windy Auckland, before winning a nailbiting final at Sydney. We sat down with Dylan ahead of the US events to get his thoughts on the SailGP season so far. Read on for the full interview:

Winners in Australia. Photo: Jason Ludlow for SailGP

So, how did you jump straight to the front of the fleet?

“I guess I still have Season One under my belt – although when you look back at Season One, it was so bad in terms of how we were sailing the boats, and it’s progressed so much. But everyone [else] in our team was consistent. It was just me stepping in and I’ve worked with a lot of them before.

“Me and Han, we’ve known each other forever. Her coach was my mentor [Joe Glanfield], so there’s so many similarities with how we talk.

“I was super-happy with the start of the season, but certainly none of us were expecting it. We also know that we will have our tough moments, but we’ve been, I guess, pleasantly surprised that in light winds, then windy, then medium, we seem to be up there in all three conditions, which is nice. AND we have plenty of mistakes that we’re making, especially myself, so it feels nice that there’s still some headroom.”

How much have the boats changed since that first season?

“The wings are new. There’s obviously three different sizes now, but the whole wing itself is new. So in Season One, we were basically using wings from the America’s Cup that were all different. So there were some performance differences in reality, whereas now they are all the same.

“The [wing] twist is much faster, so you can basically sail the boats better. It was quite hard for the two grinders in season one because the twist was really slow, so you’d struggle to ‘catch’. So you’d have to sail the boat quite differently.

Article continues below…

Dylan Fletcher-Scott Britain’s 2024 America’s Cup skipper

Dylan Fletcher-Scott is no stranger to high-stakes sailing. But even this Olympic gold medalist will be feeling the pressure as…

Paul Goodison on how to drive a foiling F50 in SailGP

Paul Goodison is one of the most talented foiling sailors around – he’s a three-time International Moth World Champion and…

“The other thing – outside of T-foils – has been lots under the hood. So the systems have massively stepped up. The way the accumulator and oil and pump and valves and all the technical sides have all improved massively, which you don’t see, but effectively allows us to sail the boat better and more accurately.

“As soon as I got on [a new generation F50], you can feel the difference. But in reality, I guess they’re all relatively minor changes compared to the T-foils. They really have – not exactly thrown a spanner in the works, but they are a big learning curve for everyone now.

“It changes [how you sail the boat] quite a lot. There’s some oil management we have to do. Because you’ve got the same amount of pumps and everything on the boat, but you are using more oil. You can move the cant in and out in the same way you could on an AC40 . So that certainly changes things.

“And the T-foil can pierce the waves occasionally. If you are below a certain boat speed and you pierce the waves, you crash. With the previous foils if you got a little bit too high, you just generally would slide sideways and then come back down. Whereas with these foils you crash. I think you see the helms flying the boats a little bit lower when the pilots are crossing. Just being more conservative, a bit more worried about not crashing – well, certainly I do.

“And because of the cant, we get more righting moment. As you cant out, you lower the bow effectively for the same rudder average. Generally speaking, all the teams are running more bow-down pitch than we were previously.”

Racing at SailGP Sydney. Photo: Ricardo Pinto for SailGP

Do you think the rankings – who’s got the hang of the T-foils and who hasn’t – will be changing a lot over the next events?

“I think it feels like it’s stabilised slightly. We’ve seen in the data that teams were not all sailing the boats the same. It was quite wild at the start in New Zealand when we did our training, and now there’s a reasonable amount of similarities.

“There’s also some different styles – like you see the Aussies obviously started incredibly well and sailed really well in all the qualifying races. But the flip side is you don’t need to win every race. You just need to win the last one.”

At events like Auckland – decent breeze, crazy small race tracks – how strategic are you being compared to just getting around the course?

“Yeah, really strategic. It’s almost slightly less reliance on the computer systems and that sort of thing because [everything] is changing so fast that you do have to just go off your gut effectively.

“But it is incredibly tight. We haven’t actually sailed with 12 boats yet, but it’s felt incredibly tight with 11, and there have been some moments that were scary, but in reality, so far, it’s been good and clean.

“The racing is, for me, incredible. I’ve really missed that tight fleet racing. Where you’re racing against Pete [Burling] and Diego [Botin], who I obviously raced very closely with [in the 49er]. But then also people like Ruggero Tita, who went to the Olympics in 2016 [sailing the Nacra]. For them all to be together, it’s really, really good fun.

Hannah Mills. Photo: C. Gregory / INEOS Britannia

And how do you run it with Hannah in terms of strategy calls? Presumably, you just have to be incredibly fast in terms of communicating?

“Yeah, I think what’s amazing with Hannah is we’ve got a lot of trust straight away with each other. There were some moments in Sydney, for example, when it was really hectic. And I was just trying to focus on managing the lane ahead, but I had an idea of what I wanted to do. It’s too hard to go and explain what I want. But I know I can just say to Hannah, ‘What do you think?’

“The other thing is because of her experience, in the final, we gybed, did a gybe turn-up, and I didn’t get to the other side. So she’s helming the boat in the round up, and I’ve got complete confidence that she can deal with that side. So, there’s a lot of trust with our roles and she can do a really good job.”

And when it comes to traffic management, how do you handle that? Because there are boats coming from every direction at some points.

“Well, we’ve got the coaching booth who are looking at ‘issue boats’, as we call them, on the 2D map. We got Ben Cornish and Rob Wilson. Ben Cornish is making sure that if there’s a port-starboard and they haven’t heard anything [from the boat], they might [tell us]: ‘There is an issue boat on port.’

“It’s Hannah’s responsibility to look, but then also the booth is a backup. Obviously, we don’t want to have a crash. So Han will say, ‘We’ve got an issue with this boat. Might be crossing. What do you think?’ Then, like any normal boat, I make the final call on a duck or a cross, basically.”

Photo: Ricardo Pinto for SailGP

Are those close calls as close as it looks?

“It’s incredibly close. The racing in Sydney, especially on the first day, where the first beat was very changeable with the shifts – then you’re coming into a boundary, you’re going to come out on port, and it’s like, ‘are we going to be in the zone of protection?’ It’s ever-changing very quickly.

“I think for me, that day in Sydney really highlighted how intense the season is going to be. Every day we get off the water and we are just like, ‘Wow, that was wild’.”

The penalty system really pushes avoiding collisions, doesn’t it?

“Yeah. So if the boats come together, then there’s penalty points. And if they believe that even the right of way boat could have done more to have kept clear, then you get penalty points, and they are severe.”

So keeping out of trouble becomes a huge part of the strategy?

“Yeah. In the last two races in the fleet racing, we’d almost guaranteed our spot for the final. We were 15, 16 points ahead of 4th. We were thinking, ‘Okay, just two solid races’. Just stay out of trouble because if you go and get a penalty point, then you’re not only out of the final, but then you’ve got the season penalty points. We see now the Germans with negative season points and the Americans and the Brazilians on nothing – going into the fourth event of the season. It’s unbelievable, right?

“And that this is something we’re discussing as a team – it’s a long season. It’s about managing risk, and the finals are going to be up and down. But if we can just try and keep plugging away and be in the final or thereabouts, then that’s where we need to be at the end of the season.”

A close finish at SailGP New Zealand. Photo: Bob Martin for SailGP

Going back to the coaching booth – is their primary role collision avoidance? Can they communicate much else to you?

“So they can communicate with us whenever they want. Some teams run it differently, so their booth might be a bit more of a strategist effectively, maybe depending on their experience.

“For us, we’ve got Rob who is obviously really experienced at coaching in SailGP. Then Ben and I actually did all of the two boating in AC40s together, so we’ve got a really great relationship. Their role is really to help us with the bias on the course or the gate bias, which changes quite a lot. I guess they’re almost a backup for anything that we’ve missed. They might turn around and tell us: ‘You must have left turn!’ Although they’ve never said that yet!

“Or there was an incident in Sydney where the software wasn’t working properly, and we didn’t have any laylines or anything, and they would be backing us up. So Hannah would go to leeward and have a little look, and we’d go back to [doing it the] old fashioned way – which is fine, but not knowing where the boundary was was quite concerning!”

“In between the races is where we really use it a lot. I guess it’s similar to the race engineers you’d have in Formula One. Ultimately, because it’s so fast-paced, it’s hard for them to actually have space to talk to us. They really struggle to get the time.”

Photo: Ricardo Pinto for SailGP

Do you get information overload at some point? Where you just need to look at where you’re going?

“There are times like that. But I think we’re quite good as a team at trying to not talk too much. The team have done a really good job of integrating me because obviously there’s things that I’m not as good at or learning, and they’ve given me the space rather than going ‘Do this, do that’. Because then I’m just listening to them and I’m not doing what I’m actually quite good at. And so we don’t do anything well. They’ve allowed me the space to do what I do well and I will learn from my mistakes.”

Was it quite hard to adapt to sailing with another voice in your ear from the coaching booth?

“Not really! It’s quite interesting. It’s just another piece of information. You get used to it. But then with this [high performance] world, it slowly just builds up more and more and more, so you become more accustomed to it. But the flip side is I was out sailing my Moth last week and absolutely loved being on my own.”

Nobody to talk to!

“No, but I do occasionally talk to myself before the start of a race to go through my checklist. Otherwise, I sometimes forget things!”

Looking ahead to the US events, what are you expecting?

“I’m always hopeful of San Fran. That’s going to be good. And I’m really excited to be going to race in LA. I think a different venue, flatter water, then followed by San Francisco, where we’ll have maybe slightly longer courses, more open racetrack where we can see some longer runs, it will be interesting to see where teams are with the T-foils.”

The Rolex Los Angeles SailGP takes place from March 15-16, followed by the Oracle San Francisco SailGP from March 22-23. Visit SailGP.com
Tickets for the UK event, the Emirates Great Britain Sail Grand Prix Portsmouth, are on sale now, with early bird pricing available until Monday, March 17. See sailgp.com/tickets

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The post British star, Dylan Fletcher on jumping straight to the top of the SailGP leaderboard appeared first on Yachting World.

Sir Ben Ainslie has announced he is stepping down as Driver of the Emirates Great Britain SailGP Team. Ainslie will continue his role as CEO of Emirates GBR but will hand over the wheel to double Olympic Gold medallist and America’s Cup teammate Giles Scott MBE.

Speaking after his final SailGP Event as Driver in Dubai, Ben Ainslie said it was “time for the next generation to come through”.

Ainslie said of the decision to step away from the role: “Like any big decision, there’s plenty that goes into it and a lot of factors at play. As the CEO of both Emirates GBR and the INEOS Britannia America’s Cup Team, and most importantly a husband and father, at some point you’ve got to realise that you can’t do everything.

The America’s Cup, which takes place later this year, looms large for many and Ainslie is the second SailGP driver also involved with the Cup to step down in recent months, with Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Cup helmsman, Jimmy Spithill, also recently stepping away from the racing circuit to focus on Cup duties.

Ainslie and Scott have a long history, initially competing against each other to represent Great Britain at the London 2012 Olympic Games. Scott pushed hard and it was an extremely close competition, but Ainslie was successful in selection and went on to secure his fourth Gold medal before retiring from Olympic sailing. The torch was then passed to Scott, who competed at the Rio 2016 games, winning Gold in the Finn class, before achieving the double at Tokyo 2020.

Scott said taking on the role of Driver for Emirates GBR from Ben Ainslie was “a big moment”.

“I’ve got some catching up to do, but the Emirates GBR Team is a great squad, everybody involved is hugely experienced and top quality sailors. I’ve got to step up to the mark and do the best job I can to fill those big old boots that Ben’s left behind.”

Scott has been behind the wheel for many of the SailGP practise sessions throughout 2023, so he should have a decent grasp of what it takes to get the foiling catamaran around the race course.  He joins the Emirates GBR SailGP Team as Driver, alongside Hannah Mills OBE as Strategist, Iain Jensen as Wing Trimmer, Luke Parkinson as Flight Controller, Matt Gotrel MBE, Neil Hunter and Nick Hutton as Grinders and Hannah Diamond as Reserve Sailor.

In his role as Emirates GBR CEO, Ainslie will manage the overall performance of the Team both on and off the water. Strategist Hannah Mills OBE will continue her development behind the wheel of the F50, helping towards her goal of becoming the first female Driver of a SailGP Team. This development continues next week in Abu Dhabi, where Emirates GBR has organised a Women’s Pathway Programme training day on its F50.

Mills will helm the session which will be attended by female athletes from other SailGP Teams to enable them to gain experience and develop in different crew roles.

On his time in SailGP, Ainslie said: “I’ve loved every minute of sailing in the League. We’ve had some great moments and some challenging moments, but I’ve just loved it. It’s the best sailing I’ve ever done in my career, it’s so much fun. We’ve got a great team at Emirates GBR that has a really exciting future and I’m still going to be part of it for many years to come.”

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Four-time F1 World Champion Sebastian Vettel and double Olympic sailing bronze medallist Erik Heil have joined forces, alongside team owner Thomas Riedel, to announce a brand new German SailGP Team. Germany will be the latest nation to contest the global racing league, which kicks off its fourth season on June 16-17 with the Rolex United States Sail Grand Prix in Chicago.

Sebastian Vettel’s involvement will be alongside entrepreneur and investor Riedel – president of the leading communications company that bears his name – with whom Vettel is a recent co-investor. That might sound like the pair are merely the money men, but in a release by SailGP on behalf of the team they state that Vettel and Riedel will both be taking an active role in the management and performance of the team.

Heil, who won Olympic bronze medals at both the Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games will drive the cutting-edge, hydrofoiling Germany F50. The new Germany SailGP Team was unveiled during SPOBIS 2023 in Düsseldorf, where the team introduced itself and presented its ambitions for the upcoming season.

Heil said: “Today is a really exciting step in the team’s journey and we have pulled together an amazing team. But we are under no illusions that it will be easy and other world-class teams have paid a lesson when they entered SailGP. We will have to work our way up. That’s the goal. However, SailGP comprises the best athletes in our sport and personally I can’t wait to get racing.”

In addition to Heil, female German-Brazilian double Olympic champion from Rio and Tokyo, Kahena Kunze was also announced as the team’s strategist. The full line-up will be announced next month.

Skipper Nathan Outteridge gets the Japan SailGP Team airborne in Cadiz, Spain, in October 2021. Photo: Felix Diemer/SailGP

Riedel is no stranger to SailGP, as his communications company provides the entire on-site wireless communications and TV production infrastructure for the league as a technology supplier. The wireless network connects, among other things, the participants’ F50s, support boats, referee and camera boats, as well as drones and helicopters for aerial filming.

Riedel said: “As a company, we have always been able to not only understand formats but evolve them through technology and innovation. I see great potential in all directions with the Germany SailGP Team: sports, business and media. We believe that a great movement can emerge from this. In addition, we can credibly implement our concerns in terms of sustainability and diversity. That’s one of the reasons why I approached Sebastian as a trusted partner and knowledgeable technology and sustainability expert. Sebastian also knows how to win. So, he’s not just a co-owner of the Germany SailGP Team, but an equal partner who can help us succeed in everything we do. However we are aware that success is not something you can achieve in a few races, and it may take some time, but I believe we have the team to make sure it happens.”

Vettel said: “I see a lot of potential as SailGP starts its fourth season and for the first time with a German team. Parallels between sailors and Formula 1 have long existed. The boats are fascinating and the speeds on the water are incredibly high. The races are exciting and I am happy to be close to them with a motivated group of young sailors.”

Vettel, who left Formula 1 in 2022 after a years at the sharp end of the sport, had become increasingly outspoken around sustainability issues both within the sport and without. And it appears this passion has not disappeared with the German stating it was one main reasons he was attracted to the endeavour.

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Yachting World is the world’s leading magazine for bluewater cruisers and offshore sailors. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams.

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In a gutsy and impressive performance New Zealand defied the odds to win the Singapore SailGP. The win cements Peter Burling’s position as the main threat to Tom Slingsby’s charge for a third straight season title, with New Zealand now clearly second in the Season 3 standings. The Kiwis are also the only team besides Australia to win more than one event this season.

Day two of the Singapore event was dominated by three teams, with New Zealand, Denmark and surprise package Switzerland finishing in the top three of both fleet races. It was a day to remember for the Swiss, as they claimed their first ever race win to finish the event in fourth, agonisingly short of a first final appearance.

Nicolai Sehested’s Denmark raced well to finish second in race three, win race four, and pushed the New Zealand team all the way in the final. A strong first day was enough to see Australia make the final but its indifferent form from the day two fleet races carried into the final and it finished third.

For Burling it was a victory to savour, after his team started the event on minus four points for a contact incident with the United States in pre-event training.

Burling said: “Coming into this weekend on the back of those penalty points and just seeing the way the team came together under a bit of adversity is super pleasing for us as a group. It’s two from two against the Aussies now in the finals, we’re more than happy to keep chipping away and now looking forward, we want to firstly try to make the top three which obviously this weekend helps out a lot with, and then to try to be in our best possible shape going into that final to win the season.”

It was a third event final appearance of the season for Nicolai Sehested and a first time in second place on the podium after a solid weekend for the Denmark SailGP Team which saw it keep in touch with the all-important top three.

Sehested said: “We closed the gap to the top today and that’s all we need to do. We still have two more events to keep closing the gap, it’s only in San Francisco that counts, so we will just keep chipping away and we don’t mind sitting in fifth until the San Francisco event.”

The Australians now sit fifteen points clear of fourth place with just three events remaining and are all but guaranteed a place in the Grand Final.

Slingsby said: “We’re feeling really good, we‘re really happy with how we’re looking on the ladder. It’s going to be amazing going back to Australia. It feels like we can just do our thing and sail and just try to get some decent results, we don’t need to go out there and get first to make the final. So we’re going to go out there, sail free and try to get the win in front of the home crowd.”

It was a banner day for Sébastien Schneiter and Nathan Outteridge, co-drivers of the Swiss team, as they claimed their first ever win and very nearly pushed their way into the final with a second place finish in the day’s other race.

Swiss Strategist Laurane Mettraux said: “It was pretty cool out there, I’m just very happy for the team, for Sébastien and for everyone who is working in the shadows. Finally it came! It all sort of came together today, I think we knew that it was going to just take time and we had to wait a little bit and obviously today was the day.”

Quentin Delapierre’s France dropped out of the top three in the season standings after an eighth place finish at East Coast Park, while fourth for Ben Ainslie’s Great Britain team in Singapore was enough to see them replace France in the Grand Final positions.

Seventh at this event for the United States leaves them seventh in the championship and driver Jimmy Spithill looking unlikely for a second straight Grand Final appearance, while Canada’s early season form seems to have evaporated as Phil Robertson’s team sits sixth in the season standings. Spain’s struggles continued with a last place in Singapore leaving driver Jordi Xammar only one point above the bottom-placed Swiss on the season three ladder.

With both days of general admission sold out, over 5000 fans across the weekend packed the shorelines of East Coast Park. Speaking in the event village, Mr Alvin Tan, Minister of State, Ministry of Trade and Industry said: “It’s really good to be here at Parkland Green, East Coast Park to welcome SailGP, the first event of its kind in Asia. It is broadcast to about 186 territories around the world, putting Singapore on the map. Events like SailGP are a harbinger of what Singapore tourism has to offer now and in the future. We cannot wait to see how SailGP will evolve over time to be a wonderful and engaging product, for Singapore and the world.”

SailGP’s global championship returns to the iconic waters of Sydney Harbour for its next event, the KPMG Australia Sail Grand Prix on February 18-19, 2023.

SailGP season 3 championship standings

1: Australia // 68 points
2: New Zealand // 59 points
3: Great Britain // 54 points
4: France // 53 points
5: Denmark // 51 points
6: Canada // 45 points
7: United States // 43 points
8: Spain // 24 points
9: Switzerland // 23 points

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Peter Burling and Blair Tuke alongside their kiwi crew, including new tactician, Jo Aleh have taken victory in the British SailGP regatta in Plymouth in impressive style finishing first or second in every race bar one.

The third series of the high speed foiling catamaran racing circuit has been dominated by the two-time series winner, Tom Slingsby and his Australian team. So far the Aussies have won the opening two regattas of the season but the Kiwis managed to take the top spot in a tense, light and shifty winner takes all three-boat final race.

The Kiwis had been in impressive form throughout the weekend, finally showing the kind of pace many expected when Burling and Tuke first signed up to SailGP some time ago. It was assumed they would be fighting at the front from the off, having delivered, as a team, dominant performances in almost every boat they have sailed together including 49er gold medals and two America’s Cup wins.

It may have taken the New Zealand crew a little longer than most expected but this weekend was the sort of dominance many predicted from them. But it does remain to be seen if they can carry this form into the next SailGP event in Denmark 19-20 August.

Burling and Co head to the finish line in front of fans at the British SailGP regatta in Plymouth. Photo: SailGP

Burling said: “I think a lot of people would have expected this of us by now and it’s great to have put together a good weekend and put in such a dominant performance. We have been working really hard to improve and I think we truly proved that today, we are just so much more comfortable with the boat now than we have been.”

The Denmark SailGP Team presented by ROCKWOOL warmed up in the best possible way for its home event in just three weeks’ time with an impressive day two performance, delivering two second place finishes to secure a place in the three-boat podium final for the first time ever.

Sehested said: “It’s been a long time coming for us, and it’s really pleasing to have made the final but if I’m honest it feels a bit sour. We felt like with the wind shift we didn’t have much luck in the final and it destroyed our chances of winning but that’s racing.”

For the first time in a while it wasn’t Tom Slingsby and his Australian team on the winner’s podium, with a broken rudder – which was fixed in record time by the SailGP Technical Team –  nearly prematurely ending their afternoon in race five.

Slingsby said: “We are not disappointed at all actually, we are ecstatic about coming second in this event, it was just a really tough day for us. It looked like we wouldn’t be in the final with a gear breakage but it was an incredible effort by our team to get us into that final. And to come away with second place, wow, we are really happy.”

Great Britain missed the final – and the chance of winning its first event of the season – in controversial circumstances with a late penalty against Australia meters from the finish line in the day’s final fleet race.

Sir Ben Ainslie said: “It’s really frustrating. I mean it’s tight in SailGP, it comes down to those narrow margins. Chief Umpire Craig Mitchell and I have had our disagreements in the past and I’m sure we will again in the future. I think it’s a bad call, it’s really frustrating and we are really disappointed, but that’s top level sport, it happens, we have to take it on the chin and move on.”

The Duchess of Cambridge onboard the British F50 for a special Commonwealth match. Photo: SailGP

Before the day’s official racing, Ainslie’s British F50 was driven by The Duchess of Cambridge in a friendly Commonwealth race against New Zealand, accompanied by UN Patron for the Ocean Lewis Pugh, on the event racecourse, with the home team emerging victorious.

The Duchess also visited the SailGP technical site in her role as Patron of the 1851 Trust, the official charity of the Great Britain SailGP Team, where she joined a group of children taking part in the Protect Our Future sustainability program.

Councillor Richard Bingley, Leader of Plymouth City Council, said: “What an absolutely fantastic weekend in Britain’s Ocean City! We were honored to host the Great Britain Sail Grand Prix in the UK’s first National Marine Park for the second year running. With SailGP comes a raft of benefits for Plymouth, including attracting thousands of visitors to our waterfront, providing a welcome boost to the local economy and raising the city’s profile on a global stage.”

The European leg of the championship continues in Copenhagen for the ROCKWOOL Denmark Sail Grand Prix on August 19-20. For tickets, head to SailGP.com/Copenhagen for more information, and for details on how to watch the action in Denmark head to SailGP.com/watch.

See results and more at the SailGP website.

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‘Box office stuff’ is how Ben Ainslie described the opening day of last month’s SailGP event, in Chicago, USA. And truly, it was: the sun shone, the wind blew, the crowds waved their Stars ’n’ Stripes flags as the foiling F50s whizzed around in front of an iconic city skyline. Sailing, Hollywood-style.

This is a new vernacular for sailing. Ainslie and his peers may be the biggest names in the sport, but they are not showmen. Sailors are not athletes used to hyping the crowd or capturing a stadium with tension – they’ve spent most of their careers competing on the horizon.

SailGP set out to change all that. When it was launched in 2018 it proclaimed its modest ambition of redefining the entire sport. The event would pit the world’s greatest sailors (they unquestionably are) against each other in gladiatorial, high stakes competition designed to appeal to those who’d never watched a yacht race in their life.

The first season introduced a five-event, six-team series designed around a broadcast-friendly format. Then, just as SailGP was starting its second year, Covid happened. Global sport hit the buffers, and the entire season was jettisoned. It restarted in April 2021.

SailGP is now in its third season, and this year sees the event take a step up – more teams, more venues, more changes, more championing of its causes. But founders Russell Coutts and Larry Ellison have ambitious plans for the series, and to continue to grow SailGP needs more people to follow it, to invest in it and, above all, to love it.

SailGP racing is high octane: here Nathan Outteridge gets the Japan SailGP Team airborne in Cadiz, Spain, in the 2021 series. Photo: Felix Diemer/SailGP 

Money talks

SailGP is famously bank-rolled by some of the deepest pockets in the world. Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, and ranked by Bloomberg as the 11th richest person on the planet (Forbes placed him 5th in 2011), underwrote the costs of the circuit and original six teams (Australia, France, Great Britain, Japan, United States and the since-defunct China entry). But the deal was always that in order to remain in the series, teams had to become financially independent.

A key part of this was to make the skippers also the CEO. For most teams, this means the helmsman is also the boss – a tough dual figurehead role. “Russell has made no mistake that the buck stops with us,” Team Australia skipper Tom Slingsby tells me in Chicago. “We can employ a commercial director to try to help us find partnerships, but it’s on us at the end of the day, if we don’t fulfil our off-the-water needs, we’re the ones who pay.”

“The racing is a lot of pressure, but when we get off the water, it doesn’t stop. In between events 90% of my job is trying to find sponsorship, and so I spend all my days just calling people, following leads, taking meetings, seeing if we can get some partnerships.”

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The challenges were brought into sharp focus at the first event of this season, in Bermuda, when series runners-up Team Japan found themselves without a boat as new-funded entries from Canada and Switzerland took priority while the 10th F50 was still in build. Nathan Outteridge, skipper and CEO, made an impassioned plea for potential investors to get in touch, explaining: “It’s no surprise to me that right now our results are fantastic. But I’m well aware that if we can’t get some money together, that the team could be sold to another country.” (SailGP has since announced that Japan will not take any further part in this season)

The numbers required are eye-watering. In 2019 team running costs were around US$5 million per year. Coutts says: “When we started off it was ‘Can you cover the running cost?’ Now we’re charging a franchise fee. So that franchise fee for a new team is $20 million and an existing team is $25 million.

Swiss team wing trimmer Stuart Bithell crosses the F50 during practice in Chicago. Photo: Ricardo Pinto/SailGP

“And the equity is selling at those numbers. Tell me another sailing property that that’s happened with?”

Slingsby adds: “Because we’re doing more events now our costs go up as well, so we’ve got a bigger bill to pay off. We’re so fortunate to have Larry, who’s got a long term vision of this, and just because we can’t pay our bills right now, he’s not going to kick us out. But it’s only going to be so long of that good grace.”

It’s not hard to see where the money goes – the high energy spectator show; the army of broadcast teams; the enormous ‘Tech Zone’ to service the nine F50s, which are craned in and out every day. A professionalism pervades SailGP that’s rare for sailing events.

Despite the sums involved, the league is attracting an ever-growing list of investors, Coutts says: “For the first time in my life being involved in sailing I’ve had companies actively approaching us to get involved.”

Global expansion

Those budgets look set only to rise, as Coutts and co have ambitious plans for expansion. “One of our goals in the near-term is to build up to 20-plus events a year, which is what some of the motor racing properties are doing,” says Coutts. “That’s an event roughly every two weeks.

Australia celebrate winning at Chicago’s Navy Pier in June 2022. Photo: Ricardo Pinto/SailGP

“Having continuity is huge. It needs to become an appointment to view and people need to know, the second weekend of the month, SailGP’s on. So they’re just searching for it, ‘Where is it this weekend? Oh, it’s Chicago.’ That’s where you need to get to.”

How a big increase in the number of venues and teams would work in practice remains to be seen. There are rumours of a split between the northern and southern hemisphere teams, two parallel circuits coming together for a grand finale.

“How do you get more teams in real tight race courses, when we’re already seeing incidents?” says Ben Ainslie. “How many more is realistic before you maybe need to split the teams, or do you have longer courses? I know there’s a long term vision of more events. But those are the real challenges: how you increase the number of events, increase the number of teams, but keep the quality of the racing and ensure the safety of the crews?”

Coutts and Team Canada backer Fred Pye with skipper Phil Robertson. Photo: SailGP

But what once felt impossible is already becoming routine, says Tom Slingsby. “When we started SailGP and they said we’re going to be fleet racing with five or six boats we were asking how are we possibly going to do this? Then you get used to it and suddenly it becomes a little bit second nature. The start lines are for sure getting quite crowded, but if you make the start lines a bit longer, theoretically it should be the same.

“I feel like we could comfortably race with 10 to 12. On the racetrack it’ll be all-on, but I think it’s possible.”

Making an impact

One area where SailGP is determined to make big changes is in its sustainability credentials. There’s no denying the efforts go far beyond the usual branded water bottles and beach cleanups. Teams are scored on initiatives they make to improve their environmental impact for the ‘Impact League’ trophy. Everything from vegan crew food to the number of taxi journeys taken is given points.

The ‘Impact League’ leaderboard gives teams – who, by definition, are the type of people who’ll race to get to the front of a checkout queue – an element of onshore rivalry. “I’ve been really impressed with how all the teams have approached it,” explains Ainslie, “I was worried when they mooted it. Are people really going to buy into that? But everyone’s genuinely really competitive about it.”

Great Britain capsize in Cadiz last autumn. Photo: Bob Martin/SailGP

However, it’s a difficult message to get across while the whole concept of SailGP is based on shipping an increasing number of boats and containers around the world. Although an electric foiling Candela boat was being used at Chicago, it was outnumbered by dozens of fuel-burning RIBs, and while the race marks may be battery-powered robo-marks, a helicopter wheels constantly above the fleet to capture the all-important live video feed.

“It’s a good question,” says Ainslie. “How can we be more efficient? Start with the chase boats – essentially we’re quite clean a sport because we’re wind driven but then look at the chase boats. Can we get those on electric motors or on foils?”

More significant, perhaps, is what’s going on in the corporate VIP lounges. SailGP is attracting backers from sectors including energy and data communications, while the Danish team sponsors are insulation company Rockwool. It’s positioning itself as a platform for chief sustainability officers to do business, and that’s likely to be more impactful.

SailGP is pushing a women’s athlete programme, with a female sailor on every boat. Photo: Bob Martin/SailGP

Equality drive

The other cause SailGP has adopted is advancing the role of female sailors. It’s been a swift transition, from having women first sail aboard the F50s last October, to the sixth crew taking an increasingly active role.

Most teams have the female sailor in a strategist position, helping to ease some of the information overload for the helmsman.

“We run [that role] as another set of eyes, talking about wind and pressure and where the gains are on the course. Also keeping an eye out for boats we might not have seen, and how our relative boat speed is. So really assisting me in the tactics role,” explains Slingsby, who primarily sails with Nina Curtis as the Australian female athlete.

“We’re sailing the boats a lot quicker now and a lot more efficiently than we used to, and that’s due to having another set of hands and another set of eyes helping us around the racetrack.”

Other teams are experimenting with different options, including having the sixth crew helm out of manoeuvres. Chris Draper of Team Canada explains that as a new team they had a blank sheet when deciding how to run the boat. “[The] more experienced teams have sailed together for a long time, they might race their America’s Cup races together in a certain configuration, so often the female sailors are coming in as extras and they’re almost having a role made for them. With this team, the girls have been here since the start and all the roles have been built around six people, not five.”

Close up views of the racing for spectators from Chicago’s Navy Pier. Photo: Katelyn Mulcahy/SailGP

Things change more when the SailGP boats sail in light winds mode with just four crew on board, with a female crewmember often moving into a grinding role. But a longer-term goal is to get female sailors into key positions like wing trimmer and flight controllers.

“You can’t force things quickly because the boats are dangerous,” explains Britain’s Hannah Mills. “We get the best wing trimmers and flight controllers and helms and grinders in the world, talking us through their role, but the challenge with SailGP is time on the water, time in those positions in training, because we’re only here for two days before we start racing and the teams themselves get very little time.”

“It’s really high tariff if you get [those roles] wrong. So that’s why anyone, whether male or female coming in, needs a lot of time to upskill,” says Ainslie. “The simulator helps a bit, but it’s never quite the same as the real thing.”

On board with New Zealand in Bermuda. Photo: Ricardo Pinto/SailGP

Mills is working on trying to secure a backer for the Women’s Pathway Programme. “That would make a huge difference in terms of funding, so we can do proper training camps, probably with the boats that are being built for new teams,” she explains.

How far could SailGP progress with its female athlete programme? “Ultimately I don’t have an answer. I think everyone would like to see a pure women’s league, but then logistically, is that practical? Or should it just be a lot more equity on the boat? To be honest, I think either works,” says Ainslie.

Mills wants to aim for a 50:50 gender split on each F50. “I really want to see it work towards gender equity on the boats. I think that’s a really powerful statement and would massively make us stand out as a sport.”

“Ultimately, we want to achieve total gender equity and the sport has got a long way to go,” says Coutts. “I think the first thing we’ll probably see is a female driver in this league. I’ve got a vision that a female driver will be competitive and able to win races and win events.

“If we can get to that point quickly, that will change the future. Because straight away, you’re going to get a whole bunch of young female kids who will be saying, ‘I want to be her’. Whereas right now you’re getting a bunch of male kids saying, ‘I want to be him’.”

A huge broadcast operation behind the scenes. Photo: Jon Buckle/SailGP

Best of the best

From the spectators’ and competitors’ perspective, SailGP’s real appeal is that it has drawn the most talented sailors in the game. “I think we’re all doing it because it’s the best racing out there, bar none,” confirms Ainslie. It is also, Chris Draper confirms, “epic fun”.

But it can be bruising for the ego. Jimmy Spithill, skipper of Team USA and known as one of the toughest competitors in sport, took a kicking at the Chicago event, finishing one place off last. A brutal team debrief lay ahead. “One thing I won’t do is pull any punches. We have built this team on candour and honesty, and we will be using all of that as we go through all the footage and data,” Spithill commented afterwards.

The split-second accuracy and almost telepathic communication required to fly an F50 to consistent wins seems to require a particular type of crew alchemy. Putting experienced crew into new teams often doesn’t work if there’s any language barrier to contend with.

Even very established teams have struggled, most noticeably the New Zealand entry, skippered by America’s Cup winner Pete Burling, who are yet to even qualify for an event final. “There is no magic bullet. You’ve got to be good across all areas and we’re not,” Kiwi wing trimmer Blair Tuke told the New Zealand Herald after the event.

Races are usually just 12-16 minutes long, designed to capture attention and fit around broadcast schedules. Photo: Thomas Lovelock/SailGP

That, however, is exactly why they are likely to keep coming back for more. Tom Slingsby, who has recently signed with America’s Cup challengers American Magic, is one of many SailGP crew racing across both programmes.

“They’re very separated, but I think [American Magic team principals] Terry Hutchinson and Doug DeVos realise that this is the best racing in the world at the moment and if I want to be a top helmsman in the world in the America’s Cup, I’ve got to be doing SailGP.

“They probably see it as an opportunity for someone else to pick up the bills for me getting the best training you could ever get in the lead up to the Cup!”

In order to be the best racing in the world, it has to be fair and true – a tricky balance in cityside venues.

The teams’ water consumption is among the factors ‘scored’ in the Impact League. Photo: Ian Roman/SailGP

“I don’t think that there has been an event in SailGP where the best boat on the weekend has not won,” says Chris Draper, who spent many years on the Extreme Sailing Series (formerly iShares Cup), a previous ‘stadium sailing’ event.

“With the iShares Cup I would give the analogy that at times it was like taking Formula 1 into a car park. The racing was always awesome but the reason why it worked was because there were so many races.

“I would say with SailGP we have some venues that are like Baku, like Silverstone, really glamour tracks – Bermuda, San Francisco – and we’ve got some more like Monaco. But I think the balance is just about right.”

Interest piqued?

So who are the SailGP fan base? From the outset organisers made no bones about the fact that it wasn’t designed to only appeal to sailors. “In that initial year [it] really tried to tackle the non-sailing audience, but kind of missed the sailing audience a little bit. But now everybody that I speak to watches it,” says Chris Draper. “All the Olympic sailors I work with follow it religiously.”

The vast technical base area in Chicago. Photo: Ricardo Pinto/SailGP

Coutts says he hopes SailGP will convert non-sailing fans to the sport: “Our analysis is showing that the engagement is not just your typical sailing fan. We’re getting equal engagement from [motor] racing fans, which is fantastic.

“Some of the traditional sailing elements have been saying that we’ve got to be – in their terms, and I don’t use these words – careful not to dumb it down. My opinion is, talking in a language that a wider audience understands is not dumbing it down. We’re still talking about the technicalities and advanced racing tactics that make a difference between winning and losing, but in a way that a wider audience understands.

“If we can do that, if we can get more people interested, draw young people in, that’s what the goal should be for anyone involved in this sport. Getting this in front of more people, for sure you’re going to get more non-sailors that say, ‘Hey, I want to give that sport a try.’ I don’t think we should be narrow minded about this.”

So if you haven’t watched for a little while, tune in and try it, you might just love it.

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The foiling F50 catamarans will be heading to Plymouth for the Great Britain SailGP in one week’s time, from July 30-31, and there’s still time for British and visiting fans to buy tickets to view the ‘stadium racing’ on the UK’s south coast.

Great Britain SailGP racing takes place in Plymouth Sound with the race village on the Hoe providing a perfect natural amphitheatre. Three races will be held each day, including a final three-boat decider. Racing takes place from 1400-1530.

Onshore there will be a Fan Village with commentary and live screens (entry £4.75/adult, children free) as well as a seated Waterfront Premium area (£45/adult, £23/child).

You can also watch from the water for free on your own boat – just register in advance to get key course and safety information – or upgrade to Own Boat Premium access for a position at one of the turning gates.

Get Great Britain SailGP tickets and find out more at sailgp.com

Ainslie at the helm of the British F50. Photo: Eloi Stichelbaut for SailGP

Great Britain SailGP competitors

Nine teams will be competing in the high performance foiling cats, including home crew Great Britain skippered by Ben Ainslie, reigning champions Team Australia with Tom Slingsby, and up-and-coming stars Canada, skippered by multiple world match racing champion Phil Roberston with Brit Chris Draper trimming the wing.

They’ll be racing against Jimmy Spithill in Team USA, Peter Burling and Blair Tuke on the New Zealand boat, plus teams from France, Switzerland, Spain and Denmark.

British skipper Ben Ainslie explained that Plymouth Sound is a ‘challenging but great venue’, with the breakwater providing ‘relatively flat waters’ and the Hoe acting as a natural amphitheatre. “It ticks all the boxes,” he says, adding: “You don’t get many opportunities to race at home at this sort of level and it’s extra special to race in front of a home crowd.”

Unfortunately, after their boat went to the new Canadian entry for the start of the season, team Japan under helmsman Nathan Outteridge have recently officially been ruled out of returning to the competition for the rest of the season. It had been hoped that the Japanese-flagged team could return with a new boat after missing the first few events of the year, but a recent statement from the organisers said:

‘After much deliberation and taking into account logistical and commercial considerations, SailGP has made the difficult decision to pause the participation of Japan SailGP Team indefinitely.

‘The league would like to thank Nathan Outteridge and all of the athletes and staff involved in the Team for their outstanding performance in the first two seasons of SailGP and wish them all the very best for the future.’

Fast and furious SailGP action. Photo: David Gray for SailGPx

Great Britain SailGP royal visit

On Sunday, July 31, The Duchess of Cambridge will be among those heading to Plymouth.

The Duchess is the Royal Patron of the 1851 Trust, and will be joining a group of young people taking part in the Protect Our Future program, before heading out on Ainslie’s British F50 to take part in a friendly Commonwealth race against UN Patron of the Oceans, Lewis Pugh, who will race with Peter Burling and Blair Tuke’s New Zealand SailGP Team.

The guest race will take place ahead of the three SailGP races on the final day of the Great Britain Sail Grand Prix and be commentated live from the Official Race Village.

Along with the Protect Our Future programme, there are a raft of sustainability innovations at Plymouth, including the largest solar array SailGP has ever used and bio-methanol fuel used as an energy source at a live event in the UK for the first time ever. This will enable the entire race village to be 100 per cent powered by clean energy.

There will also be electric support boats joining the RIB fleet, and robotic sailing marks by MarkSetBot, while DRIFT Energy will be showcasing their world-first technology of a foiling yacht that produces green hydrogen on board.

How to watch Great Britain SailGP

For those unable to make it to Plymouth to watch the action live,  the Great Britain SailGP regatta will be streamed live on YouTube and will be available in most territories.

For viewers in the UK, in addition to the live YouTube SailGP racing, it will be available on Sky Sports with both live racing and a highlights package.

For those in the USA, CBS also will be offering a mix of live broadcasting and highlights packages.

There will also be a delayed full race replay put out on the SailGP Facebook page.

A SailGP app is available as a companion app to the broadcaster coverage. The app provides: live data and video feeds; video and race stats side by side; the option to change viewing angle and zoom in on the action; switch teams, and select data feeds.

The app will offer delayed coverage and full race replay 48 hours after race completion.

Get the SailGP app on Apple or on Android.

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Yachting World is the world’s leading magazine for bluewater cruisers and offshore sailors. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams.

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‘A box office show’ is how Ben Ainslie described the US SailGP venue at Navy Pier Chicago, this weekend. It’s hard to imagine a better venue for Larry Ellison and Russell Coutts’ ambitious series, which aims to take the ‘stadium sailing’ concept to the next level.

A spectacular city skyline, the bustling Navy Pier spectator area and a crowd of die-hard sports fans (it seems every other person in Chicago is wearing their favourite team’s shirt). Add in glorious sunshine and Lake Michigan could hardly have delivered more.

The only thing the so-called ‘Windy City’ was missing was wind – at least on the final day. While Saturday delivered moderate but fully foiling conditions within the confines of the Navy Pier breakwater, for today’s final races the race organisers had to move the whole show further offshore.

Great Britain SailGP Team helmed by Ben Ainslie sails past the Chicago skyline and Navy Pier at the T-Mobile United States Sail Grand Prix, Chicago. Photo: Ricardo Pinto/SailGP.

That’s not a decision to be taken lightly – the crowds packed on the bleachers had paid $185.00 per head for the privilege of a unique spectator experience based on the promise of so-close-you-can-touch it sailing action. But despite the decision to sail with a light winds set up for the one-design fleet – which includes light airs foils, rudders, and a whopping 29m high light airs wingsail – for raceable conditions the whole course was moved outside the breakwater.

The decision proved to be a smart one and, despite a few touch downs during the first race of today, the three-boat grand final delivered a full foiling show.

Australian comeback

Reigning champion Tom Slingsby had made hard work of getting to the final with his Australian team picking up an uncharacteristic 10th in the first race of the day and only overtaking New Zealand in the series points at the penultimate race.

“We came dead last in the first race and I thought our chance of making the final had gone and our winning streak had come to an end,” Slingsby admitted after racing.

Tom Slingsby and the Australia SailGP crew celebrate after winning the T-Mobile United States Sail Grand Prix in Chicago. Photo: Bob Martin/SailGP.

“But a lot of people don’t know that four of the six people in this team were part of the greatest sporting comeback in history, when Oracle Team USA came back from 8-1 down in the America’s Cup to win 9-8, so I’ve always known how good they were under pressure and it’s nice to see that recognised. I know when we have a high pressure situation we’re going to perform.

“But I think it’s pretty clear to see we’re very beatable.”

Canadians surprise at SailGP Chicago

Perhaps the surprise stars of the show in Chicago were Team Canada, skippered by gun-for-hire Phil Roberston.

Roberston is highly experienced in the F50, having previously driven for the Chinese and Spanish teams, but the impact his new Canadian team have had on the leaderboard has surpassed many – including Robertson.

Having made an impressive debut in Bermuda to finish 3rd overall, the Canadians picked up two race wins in Chicago and finished the final in 2nd. Has Robertson – who described himself as a ‘bit of a scrapper’ in the pre-event press conference – rattled some of the more long-standing teams?

“I don’t know if we’re rattling anyone,” he told us, “I just think it goes to show if you put a good team on the boats you can do really well in this series. We’ve got momentum on our side, which helps, and I can assure you our training time here was not very pleasant – it was very average but we pulled it together.

“I must say I’m a little bit surprised. I expected us to be competitive, but not competitive against Australia and Great Britain and to be matching them for speed and in manoeuvres around the track is pretty cool. It’s a good place to be but I know different conditions could really trip us up, so we’ve got a lot to learn.”

Slingsby, however, confirmed that the Canadians have made an impact. “They are proper contenders,” he said.

“Here it was tough – it was shifty and patchy, and they’re good, they’re really good. I think more respect has to go to Chris Draper, he was unbelievable with Team Japan and now he’s switched over to the Canadians and got them to the top of the fleet. With two podium places in a row, they’re true contenders.”

Ben Ainslie, skipper of the Great Britain SailGP team. Photo SailGP

Third overall was Ben Ainslie’s Great Britain team, who delivered a very consistent series to secure a place in the final race.

“Are we happy? Yes and no – happy to get into the final race and felt like we were quite consistent across the weekend. That was a goal across the season, because last year we had some issues and were very up and down, but we need to start nailing that final race and being a bit better than are,” said Ainslie.

The next event in the SailGP calendar is in Plymouth, from July 30-31. Find out how to buy tickets, including bring-your-own-boat access, at sailgp.com

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Do you sail faster in fresh water or salt water? It’s a question you’ve probably never had to ask yourself, but it’s one the SailGP teams in Chicago this weekend have been delving into.

Explore the question for conventional sailing boats and you’ll come across a couple of differing arguments, one being that the increased density of salt water equates to increased buoyancy, so for heavy displacement yachts (and particularly large ships), less volume of boat is in the water, so reduced drag equates to increased speed.

The other view is that the increased density of salt water equates to increased resistance moving through the water, and slower boat speeds. Either way, for most yachts and sailors any difference is likely to be negligible.

The only way to settle the discussion is with real, empirical evidence, and if there’s one sector of sailing which has endless data on relative boat speeds of multiple, equally matched boats in different sailing areas, it’s SailGP.

The F50 fleet training on Lake Michigan ahead of the T-Mobile United States Sail Grand Prix | Chicago at Navy Pier. Photo: Ricardo Pinto/SailGP

Ahead of today’s first day of racing for the Chicago stage, the 10 teams have been training on inland Lake Michigan, and recalibrating foil handling for sailing on fresh water has been a key focus. There’s no question that for the foiling F50s, fresh is faster.

Fresh water is faster

“It’s about 2 knots difference,” Russell Coutts told me after the pre-event press conference.

“They have to be selling a little faster for the take off, but the top speed is about 2 knots faster. It’s a pity we’re not going to get a windy weekend because we probably would have seen a new top speed here, because it’s interesting that the onset of cavitation, according to the analysis, is about half a knot faster.”

The F50s have a number of foil and rig combination options. Canada SailGP Team work on their F50 catamaran ahead of T-Mobile United States Sail Grand Prix in Chicago. Photo: Simon Bruty/SailGP.

Ben Ainslie, skipper of Great Britain SailGP team, confirmed: “We weren’t on the fastest configuration [in training] because we had the large area rudders on, but we got 92kmph yesterday [49.6 knots] and I’m pretty sure with smaller area rudders we’d have been nudging 100 kmph [53.9 knots]. So it’s a couple of knots faster.

“It probably takes a bit more speed to get the boat up on the foils, but once you’re up it’s slightly less resistance.” During pre-race training, one element the Great Britain team were focussing on was calibrating take off speeds for fresh water in light, sometimes marginal flight conditions.

Sail GP Chicago

Unfortunately, a new F50 top speed is unlikely this weekend, despite the fresh water advantage. After the strong gusts of Thursday which saw Ainslie’s Great Britain team nudging 50 knots in training, and SailGP Canada knocked over in a capsize whilst paused alongside a support RIB, yesterday’s practice races were held in gentle conditions that saw the F50 teams racing in light wind four-crew mode despite having their practice course moved outside Chicago Navy Pier’s breakwater.

Practising racing an F50 four-up: Switzerland SailGP team training ahead of T-Mobile United States Sail Grand Prix Chicago. Photo: Jon Buckle/SailGP.

Today’s racing, for the second event of season three, will take place inside the breakwater with forecast breezes of 9-12 knots. It’s a tight racecourse under the iconic city skyline and should deliver classic Sail GP nip-and-tuck competition.

First race is at 2pm local time, 8pm UK time: watch live via Facebook or YouTube.

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In a bizarre symptom of the rapid growth of the SailGP circuit, one of the event’s top teams – Team Japan, skippered by Nathan Outteridge – is stuck ashore as the third season kicks off in Bermuda.

For the third season the fleet has grown to 10 boats, with both Canada and Switzerland joining the fleet. However, with the 10th F50 boat yet to be completed, Nathan Outteridge’s SailGP Team Japan will miss at least the first three events of the season: in Bermuda this weekend, Chicago, USA over June 18-19, and the UK leg of Sail GP in Plymouth, July 30-31.

The earliest possible date for Team Japan, who were overall runners up to Tom Slingsby’s Australian team in both previous seasons of SailGP, is the Denmark event over August 19-20.

SailGP was initially privately funded by founder Larry Ellison, the tech billionaire chairman of Oracle, with teams expected to become self-funding through commercial partnerships. In a press conference in Bermuda yesterday, CEO and skipper Outteridge explained his team’s position:

“It’s a really interesting situation to be a developing nation, building Japanese sailing talent and coming second in the first two seasons, and to not be racing now is a little tough, but I fully understand the situation.

“This event is not just about results on the water. It’s about making the teams financially successful as well. And that’s where we’re really struggling at the moment. We’ve identified great sailing talent in Japan and we’ve been getting great results on the water, but we haven’t got the financial backing that we need to be on the start line this weekend.

“We now have two fully funded teams joining the League with Switzerland and Canada, which requires ten boats to start. And the 10th boat is not ready. So we’ve loaned the boat to Canada and loaned them a wing trimmer and a coach for the week, and we wish them all the best this week, and we’re looking forward to getting back on the start line.”

Great Britain, Switzerland, France, USA, Canada and Australia competing on Race Day 1 of Bermuda SailGP presented by Hamilton Princess, Season 3, in Bermuda. 14th May 2022. Photo: Simon Bruty for SailGP. Handout image supplied by SailGP

Racing the former Team Japan boat, with Chris Draper stepping in as wing trimmer, the Canadian team got off to a strong start yesterday in Bermuda. A 2nd, 1st and 5th place put them on top of the leaderboard at the end of their first day of foiling F50 racing. Team Canada is skippered by Phil Robertson, who has previously helmed teams for China and Spain.

Meanwhile Ben Ainslie’s British team took two race wins on the first day of the season and were lying 2nd overnight, with double season champions Team Australia in 3rd.

The French SailGP team also got their third season off to a good start, picking up two 2nd places with new skipper Quentin Delapierre at the wheel.

Collision penalties

The shortage of boats has been exacerbated by global supply chain issues, as Outteridge explained: “It looks like boat 10 should be back online for the Copenhagen event. It’s a moving target.

“As you know, trying to build boats and travel things around the world at the moment is quite tough. So it’s never confirmed.”

Nathan Outteridge examines damage to the Team Japan SailGP in season 2. Photo: SailGP

During the past season several high speed collisions that caused extensive damage to the F50s also highlighted the vulnerability of the SailGP boats.

For this season the on the water judging system has been modified to increase the penalties for collisions. There is now increased discretion for the umpires to award penalty points, and penalties can also be handed out to any boats involved in a collision, not just the boat deemed at fault, if the other did not do enough to keep clear.

There is also an immediate ‘black flag disqualification’ that can be awarded to a team that puts another team at high risk of serious collision or capsize.

Team Great Britain skipper Ben Ainslie commented: ““From our perspective, we fell foul [to collisions] a couple of times last season for different reasons but we have taken the time between Sydney and this event to really reevaluate our risk and reward approach to racing, and it’s going to be a factor for sure.”

Japan SailGP Team helmed by Nathan Outteridge during a practice session on a hybrid boat comprised of the Great Britain hull and the Japan team’s 24 metre windsail and hydrofoils: following a crash between Great Britain and Japan in Australia, Ben Ainslie and the Great Britain Team gave up their boat to ensure Japan could compete. Photo: Bob Martin for SailGP. Handout image supplied by SailGP

Team Japan funding appeal

Meanwhile Outteridge and the Japanese squad are focussing their efforts on raising financial backing.

“If we can’t secure finance, there’s a real possibility that we might not make it to Denmark. It’s no surprise to me that right now our results are fantastic. But if we don’t get some financial investment, there are other teams and franchises out there who want to enter this League.

“And I’m well aware that if we can’t get some money together, that the team could be sold to another country. So I’m working as hard as I can, and if there’s anyone out there who would like to help us get some finance together, whether it’s people from Japan or people from around the world, I’d love to have a conversation with you.”

How to follow

Day two of the Bermuda Sail Grand Prix presented by Hamilton Princess continues today, Sunday 15 May, with all the action live from 18:00PM BST on Sky Sports and YouTube in the UK.

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Australian sailor Tom Slingsby has signed with the American Magic team for the 37th America’s Cup.

Slingsby, who has won Olympic Gold in the Laser class, the 2013 America’s Cup with Oracle Team USA, multiple World Championships, and back-to-back victories in SailGP, sat out the last America’s Cup but is widely considered to be one of the most talented helmsmen and tacticians in the world.

He will return with the American Magic team, representing the New York Yacht Club, for the 37th America’s Cup, which will be sailed off Barcelona, Spain, in autumn 2024.

“I’m extremely excited to return to the America’s Cup arena,” says Tom Slingsby. “The AC75s are remarkable craft, and I look forward to doing whatever I can to help our team in their quest to bring the trophy back to the United States and the New York Yacht Club. We’ve got world-class talent on board the boat and backing us on the shore, I’m proud and excited to be a part of it.”

Tom Slingsby is understood to have a US passport, enabling him to compete for the American team despite the strict nationality rules applied in the latest America’s Cup Protocol. He has previously spoken out against the nationality rule, telling Yachting World last summer: “If they’ve only got four entries in the America’s Cup, that means if you’re not part of one of those four countries, you can’t compete. And I just think that’s not fair.

“If you’re from anywhere in the world – Australia, Brazil, Uruguay, anywhere – and you’re an unbelievable sailor, you should have the opportunity to compete in the America’s Cup. If you’re from France or Austria and you’re one of the top sailors in the world you should get that chance.”

Photo: Sebastian Slayter/American Magic in the 36th America’s Cup

The American Magic team was formed in 2018 by principals Hap Fauth, Roger Penske, and Doug DeVos, and their first AC75 Patriot was well regarded as a competitive design until a crash during racing saw the boat near-sinking. It never recovered its competitive speed, and the team were first to be knocked out of the Challenger series.

However, they are putting together a strong challenge for AC37, with Terry Hutchinson returning as Skipper and President of Sailing Operations, along with British Olympian Paul Goodison on the sailing team, and Tom Burnham as head coach.

“People are the most valuable resource for any America’s Cup challenge, and we’re excited to have Tom on our team,” said Hutchinson. “As a previous winner of the America’s Cup, Tom knows what it takes to climb that mountain. He has shown incredible ability in foiling yachts, and his skill and experience will be a tremendous asset for American Magic going forward.”

It’s not yet been disclosed what role Tom Slingsby, or Paul Goodison, will take on the AC75, but both will no doubt be favourites to take the wheel, though it should be noted that the runner up in the 2021 America’s Cup, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli was sailed with twin helmsmen as both Jimmy Spithill and Francesco Bruni took on the role on different tacks.

“Having Tom and Paul Goodison, both Olympic Gold Medalists and world champions, driving our AC75 gives us a great competitive position,” says Hap Fauth. “They are fierce competitors who win at the highest level of sailing. Combine this with the world-class team we are building, and I am thrilled with our prospects.”

After winning world championships and an Olympic gold medal in the Laser at the 2012 Games, Tom Slingbsy has moved onto becoming one of the most skilled foiling helmsmen in the world, twice winning the Moth World Championships as well as skippering the Australian SailGP team to back-to-back overall series victories in the F50 catamaran. He was named 2021 Rolex World Sailor of the Year.

Like many of the SailGP skippers, Slingsby will combine racing on the circuit with America’s Cup duties, and will join the American Magic team later this summer in Pensacola, Florida, as the NYYC American Magic sets up its training base and begins preparing for the 37th America’s Cup.

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Tom Slingsby’s Australian team have won the second season of SailGP, picking up the $1m prize purse for the second season running in what was a chaotic day on the water in San Francisco.

Only the top three teams on the season leaderboard are eligible to race in the final, winner-takes-all race. Tom Slingsby and Jimmy Spithill’s Team USA had both cemented their spot in the final race ahead of this final SailGP regatta in San Francisco.

The final spot was up for grabs heading into the weekend’s racing, though Nathan Outteridge’s Team Japan were in a strong position in third overall.

Great Britain SailGP Team helmed by Ben Ainslie in action on Race Day 1 of San Francisco SailGP, Season 2 in San Francisco, USA. 26th March 2022. Photo: Ricardo Pinto for SailGP

A strong performance on the opening day of racing from Nathan Outteridge’s Japan team saw it book its place in Sunday’s three-way battle for $1 million, set to take place after the last two races of the regatta on the second day of racing.

But it was the second day which saw much of the drama as several collisions took place in the extremely gusty conditions and one race was even abandoned due to a whale on the course.

With significant gusts and shifts throughout the day due to the wind blowing off the land, and some decent waves it was tough for the teams to foil consistently and they often looked at the edge of control. As such it was, arguably, only a matter of time until we saw a collision or significant crash.

USA SailGP Team helmed by Jimmy Spithill and Spain SailGP Team co-helmed by Florian Trittel and Jordi Xammar collide on Race Day 2 of San Francisco SailGP, Season 2 in San Francisco, USA. 27th March 2022. Photo: Simon Bruty for SailGP.

The first collision on the second day saw rookie Spanish driver Jordi Xammar, sailing for team Spain, barge in at the leeward mark managing to mount the stern of Spithill’s boat resulting in a huge hole on the bow of the Spanish entrant and a similarly large hole in the stern of the USA’s foiling F50.

Remarkably enough Spithill and his crew managed to finish the race, keeping to boat foiling as much as possible to prevent it filling up with water. However, with their position in the final at stake they chose to sit out the next race to affect a speedy temporary repair to their boat.

The second big moment came in the next race when Ben Ainslie’s British team were heading downwind on starboard tack. Peter Burling’s New Zealand team and the French team with Quentin Delapierre on the helm were on port, with both needing to avoid the Brits. Delapierre appeared to luff in order to take the Brit’s stern while the Kiwis – to windward of the French team – looked to bear away in order to slow and cross behind the Brits.

It was another big collision and, with both boats alongside each other, could have been very dangerous indeed as the boats mounted nearly hitting crewmembers.

New Zealand SailGP Team co-helmed by Peter Burling and Blair Tuke and Australia SailGP Team helmed by Tom Slingsby in action on Race Day 1 of San Francisco SailGP, Season 2 in San Francisco, USA. 26th March 2022. Photo: Felix Diemer for SailGP

After all that action, the final race was something of a let down as a swinging breeze made the course a bit of a procession and Australia’s Slingby getting off the line in a good puff while his two competitors sat in light air unable to get their F50s onto their foils.

By the time Spithill got to the first mark in second place, the Aussies were already half way down the next leg and never really looked back.

Taking back-to-back victories in both the first season of SailGP and the second, Slingsby continues to prove he is a sailor at the very top of his game. The professional SailGP series sees him sail against some of the very best skippers in the world and he has bested them at every turn.

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Season 2 of SailGP is set to draw to a close this weekend as the eight competing teams, sailing their foiling F50s, line up for the SailGP Final in San Francisco.

As this is the final event of the season, the teams will be vying for the coveted $1 million top prize.

Going into this final event, there is a clear top three in the overall standings with Tom Slingsby’s Team Australia heading up the series, Jimmy Spithill’s Team USA two points behind him and Nathan Outteridge’s Team Japan in third another two points behind.

The first two of these teams are guaranteed their spot in the three-boat winner-takes-all match race for the $1m prize.

Slingsby and his Team Australia will be looking to replicate their win in the inaugural season of SailGP, but Spithill will be keen to stop them making it two straight wins.

Taking place on an iconic race course between the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz, five races will be contested across Saturday and Sunday, before the winner-takes-all, season-deciding final race.

Alongside the SailGP Season 2 Championship, for the first time ever, a second podium will also take place on the Sunday to crown the Impact League winner – the league’s second podium for the planet.

Photo: Eloi Stichelbaut for SailGP

SailGP’s Impact League is an initiative to put sustainability at the heart of the sport and accelerate the transition to clean energy. Currently Peter Burling and Blair Tuke’s New Zealand lead the charge from Ben Ainslie’s Great Britain and Slingsby’s Australia.

San Francisco marks SailGP’s return to the U.S. after a three-year hiatus, promising to deliver spectacular racing action in the race area so beloved by high performance sailors – and the scene of Oracle Team USA’s famous comeback win against Emirates Team New Zealand in the 2013 America’s Cup.

Although the top three teams are well out in front, the fight in the middle of the fleet is also close with 1 point separating Phil Robertson’s Team Spain, and Burling’s Team New Zealand, with Ainslie’s Team Great Britain just a single point behind the Kiwis.

Nicolai Sehested’s Denmark team and Quentin Delapierre’s French team round out the final places.

Racing is set to take place this weekend, 26-27 March 2022.

Tom Slingsby: man on a mission

What is the mark of a truly great sailor? Is it an Olympic gold medal, an America’s Cup win, offshore…

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Sail GP, the multi-event foiling catamaran circuit, will be expanded to 10 events for the 2022/23 season.

Beginning in Bermuda in May 2022, the foiling F50 circuit has announced new host venues including Chicago – famously known as ‘The Windy City’ on the US eastern seaboard, Copenhagen in Denmark, and Dubai.

Event organisers have also announced a four-year partnership with New Zealand venues which will see Christchurch on the south island, and Auckland on the north, alternate to host the competition.

The European stage of the SailGP 2022 tour will kick off in July with the Great Britain Sail GP returning to Plymouth after this summer’s successful running there, before heading to Copenhagen, St Tropez on the south coast of France, and then the Atlantic venue Cadiz, which delivered dramatic conditions this year. 

The circuit then moves to its first ever Middle Eastern venue, with November racing in Dubai. The series will conclude in April 2023.

The series has expanded to include 10 teams, so far featuring Australia, Great Britain, Japan, Spain, France, New Zealand, United States and Denmark, with Canada and Switzerland the newest nationalities to join.

SailGP 2022: proving its worth?

SailGP was founded by Larry Ellison and Russell Coutts and, although initially funded by the Oracle founder’s extremely deep pockets, was always created with the aim that the event would generate its own revenue. Hence it’s no surprise that three of the events already carry title sponsorship. 

Together with the recent announcement that SIr Ben Ainslie has become the majority owner in his Great Britain SailGP team, while other teams are now carrying title sponsorship, it appears that the commercial potential of the circuit seems to be coming to fruition.

Followers of the ongoing debate surrounding the America’s Cup’s venue uncertainty will also find it hard not to draw comparisons, with SailGP not only confirming a four-year commitment to racing in New Zealand, but multiple-year deals secured with several other venues on the circuit. Despite this, however, it’s worth noting the first planned New Zealand SailGP event, in January 2022, has been cancelled after the event’s request for ‘Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ)’ facilities – the strict protocols New Zealand is using to manage the transmission of coronavirus – were denied.

SailGP CEO Sir Russell Coutts said: “When Larry Ellison and I came up with the concept for SailGP, we envisaged a league with the best athletes in the world, racing in equal high-tech boats that are extremely fast, creating exciting, close to shore action, and with a regular season for our fans to truly engage with the sport globally. 

“We set ourselves a five year goal, but to sit here in Season 3 with ten teams on the start line – including two new franchised teams – an expanded season calendar, an impressive collection of commercial and broadcast partners, purpose and impact at our heart with a positive impact on the environment and an immersive fan experience through our broadcast and gaming offer – I simply couldn’t be happier with what has already been achieved.” 

Women’s pathway returns

Organisers have confirmed that the ‘Impact League’, in which teams are awarded points for their efforts to reduce the environmental impact of their activities, will continue for Sail GP 2022. The Women’s Pathway programme is also to continue, although we are awaiting further details on which events women sailors will be competing at.

The 2021/22 series continues on 17-18 December at Sydney. Home team Australia, skippered by Sydney local Tom Slingsby, currently lead the series so all eyes will on them to see if they can defend their advantage. 

The season finale takes place in San Francisco, with the Grand Final from March 26-27.

SailGP Season 3 Schedule 2022/23

• May 14-15 Bermuda SailGP presented by Hamilton Princess
• June 18-19 United States Sail Grand Prix | Chicago at Navy Pier
• July 30-31 Great Britain Sail Grand Prix | Plymouth
• August 19-20 Rockwool Denmark SailGP | Copenhagen
• September 10-11 France Sail Grand Prix | Saint-Tropez
• September 24-25 Spain Sail Grand Prix | Andalucía – Cádiz
• November 11-12 Dubai Sail Grand Prix presented by P&O Marinas
• 2023 New Zealand Sail Grand Prix | Christchurch
• Two more events TBC

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The global foiling catamaran series, SailGP returns this weekend with the nine teams taking to the water of St Tropez, France for the fifth event in the 2021 season.

Having won each of the past two SailGP events – in Plymouth and Denmark respectively – Tom Slingsby’s Aussie team currently sits top of the Season Championship, two points ahead of the Brits (skippered by Sir Ben Ainslie) with Nathan Outteridge’s Japan a further three behind.

Slingsby is a man on a mission at the moment, as the Australian returns to SailGP this weekend fresh from a dominant second consecutive International Moth World Championship title in Malcezine Italy last week.

“Obviously we are coming off a high winning the last two events, but we know this sort of high won’t last forever,” said Slingsby at the France Sail Grand Prix press conference. “We will get beaten soon.

“But the team has a really good energy right now and we are sailing confidently, and I’m really proud as skipper and CEO of the team that we are sailing so well.

“But for sure Nathan is licking his lips at the light-air forecast and is very pleased with that, but anyone can win – that is clear to see.

“We’ve had issues with light winds in the past but we’re fixing them and have been quite strong in the last two events.”

SailGP France runs from 11-12 September 2021.

Coverage on Saturday 11 September will be from 12:30-15:00 CEST
Coverage on Sunday 12 September will be from 12:30-15:00 CEST

Slingby’s Australian SailGP team have won both of the last two events

How to watch SailGP France

As for the first season of SailGP, the 2021 season will be streamed live on YouTube and will be available in most territories.

For sailors in the UK, in addition to the live YouTube SailGP racing, it will be available on Sky Sports with both live racing and a highlights package.

For those in the USA, in addition to live YouTube SailGP racing, CBS will be offering a mix of live broadcasting and highlights packages.

There will also be a delayed full race replay put out on the SailGP Facebook page.

A SailGP app is available as a companion app to the broadcaster coverage. The app provides: live data and video feeds; video and race stats side by side; the option to change viewing angle and zoom in on the action; switch teams, and select data feeds.

The app will offer delayed coverage and full race replay 48 hours after race completion.

SailGP Live Stream: How to watch from outside your country

There are loads of easy ways to watch SailGP in 2021 including in the US, UK and almost anywhere else in the world. Anyone away from their home country can still watch the action using VPNs.

VPNs allow you to get around any geo-blocking and and let you watch the same legal, high-quality  stream you would at home.

ExpressVPN is one of the best out there. It’s easy to use, boasts strong security features, is very easy to setup and is compatible with most major streaming devices.

Best of all, ExpressVPN comes with a 30 day money back guarantee. This is the #1 rated VPN in the world right now. You can try it out for a month for free or sign up for an annual plan and get 3 months absolutely free.

Watch SailGP France with ExpressVPN

You can watch SailGP from outside your country by getting ExpressVPN here.

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Thousands of fans turned up on Plymouth Hoe, and hundreds of spectator boats lined the F50 racecourse in Plymouth Sound as the sold out Great Britain SailGP took place over the weekend of 17-18 July.

Tom Slingsby’s Australia SailGP Team celebrated its first victory of SailGP Season 2, being crowned event winners of the Great Britain SailGP, as thousands of sun-drenched fans were also treated to a race win for the home team.

The Season 1 Champions were defeated by Great Britain in the final race of the Bermuda Sail Grand Prix presented by Hamilton Princess earlier this season, but got its revenge on British waters to make an astounding comeback, ultimately winning the event after a thrilling three-boat final between Australia, U.S and France.

Slingsby said: “We’re now three events in, we’ve had lead changes at each one with different people winning each time, and we’re just starting the rollercoaster. We’ve got plenty more turns ahead.

“We’ve come from close to the top of the leaderboard, to down at the bottom, and now we’re back at the top. There’s no form guide, every team has its day, and we’ve just got to hold on for the ride to try and make that Grand Final in San Francisco next March.”

Celebrating with his Australia crew members was an ecstatic Nick Hutton, the team’s grinder, who hails from Devon, UK.

Australia SailGP Team in action. Photo Jon Buckle / SailGP

Hutton said: “It’s always great to win and for me it’s extra special winning in Plymouth. It’s as close as I’m ever going to get to racing at home so I’m super happy. The last race was very hectic for us, we didn’t make it easy for ourselves, but it was great to get it done.”

The French team – driven by Billy Besson and with Brit Leigh McMillan onboard – was always in the hunt over the weekend and never out of the top three. After a nail biting final race – that saw multiple lead changes – they eventually took home the silver. With its second podium finish of the season, France has been consistently racking up the points to maintain a solid position among the top three overall leaders in the global championship.

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Paul Goodison on how to drive a foiling F50 in SailGP

Paul Goodison is one of the most talented foiling sailors around – he’s a three-time International Moth World Champion and…

Besson said: “We had a bad start during the first race and we know the starts are really important. The start in Race 5 was much better and we finished second, which meant we were able to qualify for the final. We were very happy to be there and we tried to win but it was a difficult race.

“We have learned a lot over the past few events. We’ll keep working to remain stable and stay in the mix. We’re in a good position and we hope to still be fighting at the front by the end of the season, we’re not here for nothing!”

After kicking off the season with two disappointing results due to sustaining damage to their F50 in both events to date, Jimmy Spithill’s United States SailGP Team took to the podium for a hard-fought third place finish in Plymouth.

Spithill said: “It was a good day because we made the final race again but unfortunately we had a bit of a technical issue on our starboard rudder that was deteriorating throughout the day. It was a good result for the team, given what had happened in the first two events. We’ve climbed our way up the leaderboard to mid-table and it’s very tight so we’re happy with that.

“Anytime you get to compete in the podium race it’s a great position to be in. The team sailed well all weekend and we’ve just got to keep doing that. We’ve got to keep putting ourselves in the position to win a Grand Prix.”

While the British could not qualify for the final podium race in front of its home fans, interim driver Paul Goodison earned the loudest cheer of the day when his team crossed the finish line to win the fifth race of the weekend. Goodison, in his final event driving the British F50 before Ben Ainslie’s return to the wheel, signed off his SailGP stint with a fourth-place finish in Plymouth.

Goodison said: “That was a special day. It felt fantastic to cross the finish line in first place in front of our brilliant home support at the end. There was a lot of pressure to perform after yesterday and it was really impressive how the whole team rallied. There were so many positive vibes going out there this morning and then seeing all the fans and hearing all the noise coming from them on the water was just incredible.

“The team sailed very well. There are a bunch of really talented athletes on the boat and the team in the chase boat were incredibly supportive. For me, it’s been a great pleasure to have been involved in this team and I’m just thankful that we’ve given it back to Ben in a similar shape to what I took it off him. That’s a big relief.”

Australia and Britain fight it out during SailGP in Plymouth, UK. Photo: Bob Martin / SailGP

Over the weekend, SailGP has worked closely with Plymouth City Council to ensure fans have been able to safely enjoy the high-octane action from the shore and on-water.

Leader of Plymouth City Council, Councillor Nick Kelly, said: “All I can say is – wow! What an absolutely incredible weekend in Britain’s Ocean City. The atmosphere along the waterfront was electric and Plymouth Sound really has made a fantastic stage for the Great Britain Sail Grand Prix.

“Not only that, but the week leading up to SailGP has seen so many people in Plymouth getting involved and engaging with the ocean, including STEM sessions for school children and free sailing experiences for young people and people with disabilities, which is amazing.”

SailGP CEO Sir Russell Coutts said: “The crowds were loving it. I went for a walk during the race to see what the reaction was and they were really engaged. I think Plymouth should be really proud of the event here. They really did deliver a magnificent event. One that I will certainly remember for a long time.”

Preparing for the fourth event of the season, SailGP turns its attention to Aarhus, Denmark where driver Nicolai Sehested and the Denmark SailGP Team will play host for the first time at the ROCKWOOL Denmark Sail Grand Prix, August 20-21.

Sehested said: “It’s going be fantastic to race in front of our home crowd in Aarhus. It’s going to be a great event, hopefully with good winds and good sailing. In terms of pressure it doesn’t change much, we want to perform at every event, but we are really going to enjoy sailing in front of our home fans and family.”

Focused on making constant improvements, the Danish team finished off the weekend with a third place finish in the last fleet race, to finish fifth on the leaderboard. Japan, New Zealand and Spain completed the Great Britain Sail Grand Prix leaderboard in sixth, seventh and eighth positions, respectively.

Following Denmark, the league will complete its final two European events in Saint-Tropez, France (September 11-12) and Cadiz-Andalusia, Spain (October 9-10) before heading to the Southern Hemisphere for the Sydney Sail Grand Prix, December 17-18, to finish off 2021. Racing picks up again in the new year starting in Christchurch, New Zealand (January 29-30), and the Grand Final in San Francisco, U.S. (March 26-27).

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Paul Goodison is one of the most talented foiling sailors around – he’s a three-time International Moth World Champion and was mainsail trimmer on the American Magic AC75 in this year’s America’s Cup, doing the same role on the Artemis Racing foiling catamaran in the previous Cup. Oh and he’s also an Olympic Gold medallist. But until a few weeks ago, he’d never competed in the SailGP circuit – which makes taking over the wheel of the foiling F50 for Ben Ainslie for the Great Britain SailGP Team all the more challenging.

Having won the season opener in Bermuda, Ainslie stepped out of the circuit for two events (he recently announced the addition of their second child to the Ainslie family, congratulations to Ben and his wife Georgie), handing over to Goodison for the Italian stage of the tour.

We spoke to ‘Goody’, as he is widely known, just before the start of the third SailGP event in Plymouth, UK, which kicks off tomorrow.

“It’s very new,” he explains. “My my role with Artemis a long time ago was as the backup helmsman to start with and then I ended up being a wing trimmer when it came round to the 50.

“Then the last time round I did a reasonable amount of driving the AC75 early on when Dean [Barker] was away, we swapped in and out a little bit, then I was racing as the wing trimmer in the last America’s Cup. To be stepping into this kind of fleet racing with eight boats and reaching starts is all quite exciting and quite different from what I’m used to.

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SailGP: New faces for the second regatta of the season

Saturday 5 June will see the second regatta in this second season of SailGP. For the first time ever the…

“So it was a steep learning curve, I guess, in Taranto, but a good one.” The Brits squad finished 6th in Italy, with Nathan Outteridge sailing Team Japan to win, but a mixed series saw usual front runners Australia, with Tom Slingsby, finishing 8th.

Learning to sail the foiling F50

Previously, many of the SailGP teams were able to hone their skills on a highly sophisticated simulator at Artemis Techologies in the UK, but due to Goodison’s packed schedule he had to learn on the foiling F50 for real.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance to go on the simulator! That would have been really nice, but it was just about being thrown in the deep end.

“But the other guys, the whole team from the shore team to the sailing team here is tremendous. So it was a lot easier than it would have been, I guess, if I’d been out there with a less experienced team.” 

One of the biggest challenges of racing in Taranto was that with light winds meant each crew was reduced from five to three (removing the grinders onboard) to allow the F50s to foil at a lower wind speed.

“Sailing with three [an option taken by the teams to reduce crew weight in very light winds] the first day last time was a real challenge and something I probably didn’t pick up as fast as I needed to. But there’s some good lessons out there. And if we get thrown in the deep end sailing with three again, we’ve got a much better idea on how we’d attack it this weekend. But hopefully the breeze will come and we’ll be up to full strength with the big guys up front.”

“It’s incredible when you think you are sailing a 50ft catamaran going at 25 knots upwind and 35, 40 knots downwind, with only three dudes. It’s actually really, really rewarding when you get it right – but really frustrating when it doesn’t. 

“I think as soon as the two big guys get off, you realise actually how much they do as well as just grinding the wing sheet in and out! They actually play a big role in flying the boat through the manoeuvres and trimming the jib. So then it just adds a lot more load onto the three guys who are left on board.”

“That’s when we need a couple of octopuses up in the front!”

“Looking back at the last event, it really rewarded the helmsmen that had spent a lot of time flying the boats at the America’s Cup in Bermuda. You could see how well Nathan and Jimmy were able to sail the boat and use a dedicated grinder, whereas all the other teams were sharing the role of the flight control between a flight controller and the helmsman, and switching around between grinding. And that transition is never easy, so the Japanese and the US guys had a little edge, I think. But again, it’s all down to practice.

Great Britain SailGP Team helmed by interim skipper Paul Goodison ahead of Italy SailGP, Event 2, Season 2 in Taranto, Italy. Photo: Bob Martin for SailGP

The foiling F50s are all identical, so coming from the America’s Cup – where each crew member had personalised controls – involved a quick adaptation for Goodison.

“In the flight control position, he has the ability to do both foils and the rudders, and then in the helmsman position on the steering wheel you have a rotating grip that flies the opposite board.

“You also have foot buttons in the cockpit where you press to add rudder lift or take off, as well as having buttons on the wheel to add differential or take away differential. 

So I guess the biggest challenge is I just spent to two or three years placing my buttons where I wanted to have them and getting used to them, to basically trying to learn it all again.

“When you find yourself looking to find a button rather than just moving your leg or your arm automatically is a very different feeling. It’s like trying to look for where the indicator stalk is or trying to find where the clutch is on a car – all the while you’re flying at 30 knots and getting water in your face!”

Fast learning curve

The foiling F50s also go through a series of continuous evolution to keep the development level in the fleet high – something that Paul Goodison found particularly marked since sailing the AC50s in their previous incarnation in Bermuda.

“The big thing is how much the boats have actually advanced since they were sailed in the America’s Cup. The performance is better. The control systems are a lot better. And with the dedicated flight controller the boats are more stable and they’re faster. So they are a real pleasure to drive, it’s great fun!”

There is speculation that new bigger wingsails could come out of the shed for this weekend in Plymouth, giving the F50s another power boost lower down the wind range.

Photo: Bob Martin for SailGP

Another element of SailGP’s development programme is that all data is shared across teams, another big change for Goodison after the cloak-and-dagger espionage world of Auckland.

“It’s just super interesting. You spend the last two or three years desperately trying to understand what the other boats are doing, to try and compare to what you’re doing, to see if you can fast track your learning. And then you arrive in the SailGP world from the America’s Cup world, and you can literally just look at the reports at the end of the day.

“There’s a nicely compiled report for each day, with all eight boats’ data. So it’s pretty easy to pick out the trends and see the differences. 

“I guess the big takeaway from the real light winds for us, looking at the data, was that we probably sailed a slightly slower, higher mode. Which meant that our VMG out of the tacks was probably not quite as good as, say, the Americans or the Australians who were sailing much faster through the water. But in some parts we did have better VMG, in some parts they’d make a gain. 

“So it’s just really interesting being able to piece it all together and realise what you can try new stuff. Although actually on the water there’s not a whole lot of time to put a lot of these ideas into practice, you just have to go with your gut!”

“Also having eight boats out there makes it super exciting. The race is never over, the race is never won. It makes it a little bit more like the Moth racing or I guess the Laser racing I did years ago. It’s great fun.”

The eight foiling F50s practising on Plymouth Sound ahead of the Great Britain Sail GP event on July 16-17

Looking ahead to this weekend’s Plymouth event, Goodison said: “I think it’s going to be awesome, it’s a very natural amphitheatre here, so you’re going to be able to get up high and have a good view of the racing. 

“Much the same, I guess, as it was in Auckland. So I think if you’re coming to watch, you’re going to have to get up really close and have a great view. 

“And for me, I think the sailing is going to be fantastic. We have a good forecast – maybe a touch lighter for the weekend, but the seabreeze will hopefully come in and we should have some good racing.”

Watch the Great Britain Sail GP online at Sky Sports or on YouTube from 1400 on Saturday, 17 July and 1430 on Sunday 18 July. Find out more at SailGP.com 

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The post Paul Goodison on how to drive a foiling F50 in SailGP appeared first on Yachting World.

The Great Britain Sail Grand Prix is here, as the eight national SailGP teams go head-to-head in Plymouth this weekend hoping to win the third event of the series’ second season.

Great Britain, the home team for this event, won the opening event of the campaign in Bermuda, with Nathan Outteridge’s Japan being crowned Champion of event two in Taranto, Italy.

Despite not winning either event so far, the Spanish team currently tops the Championship, and Australian helm, Phil Robertson, would love to prove the Spaniards’ title credentials by being crowned Great Britain Sail Grand Prix Champion.

At the other end of the leaderboard sit Denmark and the United States, but only five points separates last place from first and a fine showing in Plymouth could turn a bad start to the season into a promising one.

We’ve already had plenty of drama in Bermuda and Italy this season, and Plymouth promises more of the same.

Brits hoping for a home SailGP win

Champion of the opening event of the season in Bermuda, Great Britain endured a more disappointing sixth-placed finish in Taranto last time out under interim Driver Paul Goodison, who has stepping in, in Sir Ben Ainslie‘s absence.

Goodison remains as skipper for the Brits’ home Sail Grand Prix in Plymouth, and he’ll be hoping for an improved performance in front ofthe home crowd.

Great Britain still sit second in the season leaderboard despite the poor showing in Italy, and a home victory would see the British team further solidify its standing as one of the Championship favorites.

Phil Robertson’s Spanish team currently top the championship. Photo: Ricardo Pinto / SailGP

Spain look to extend SailGP lead

Spain, despite not winning either event so far this campaign, is the only team ahead of the Brits in the Championship rankings right now. Phil Robertson’s team tops the leaderboard thanks to finishing fourth and third in Bermuda and Italy respectively, and he’s proven consistency across events is key to achieving success in SailGP.

The Spanish will be gunning for a victory in Plymouth, but another top-three finish would be no bad thing – and it would prove the Spaniards’ Championship credentials.

Could the USA end their unlucky streak?

It’s been a rather unfortunate start to life in SailGP for Jimmy Spithill, who stepped up to the helm of the US team at the start of this season.

The United States’ helm saw his team finish last on his debut event in Bermuda due to a collision with Japan which damaged both F50s so much they were pulled out the remainder of the event.

Things were looking much better in Taranto as the US qualified for the winner-takes-all Final, only for Spithill’s team to collide with an underwater object during said Final while the US was leading and set for victory.

Once again, damage to the foiling F50 meant the US had to retire, and Spithill now enters his third SailGP event still hoping to see one through to completion.

Denmark hunting for form

Following the Great Britain Sail Grand Prix, SailGP heads to Aarhus for the inaugural Danish event of the Championship.

There will be plenty of support for the home team in Aarhus, but Denmark will be hoping to head into that event in better form than the team has been in so far this season.

Helmsman, Nicolai Sehested sees him team currently last in the Season Championship, having so far picked up just 11 points.

It’s still early in the season so far too soon to write the Danes off, but Sehested and his teammates need to start moving up the table if they are to be in with a shot of winning silverware.

The British SailGP team will be helmed by Ben Ainslie’s replacement, Paul Goodison. Photo: Thomas Lovelock / SailGP

Replacement Drivers out to impress

Both Great Britain and New Zealand utilised interim Drivers during the Italy Sail Grand Prix, with Paul Goodison and Arnaud Psarofaghis skippering the teams respectively in place of Ben Ainslie and Peter Burling, the Kiwi helm now focussed on the Olympic Games alongside crew Blair Tuke who will look to defend their 49er Gold medal from Rio 2016.

Psarofaghis fared the better of the two, winning Race 4 and ending the weekend fourth in the rankings, but neither truly excelled as they experienced the F50 for the first time.

But now having gained a full event’s worth of experience, both Goodison and Psarofaghis will hope to put in improved showings in Plymouth to ensure the Brits and Kiwis remain within touching distance of the top of the Season Championship leaderboard.

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The post SailGP: Teams prepared for British leg appeared first on Yachting World.

Saturday 5 June will see the second regatta in this second season of SailGP. For the first time ever the event will visit Italy with racing throughout the weekend in Taranto.

The opening event of the SailGP season in Bermuda set the stage with familiar rivalries, and some big crashes and capsizes.

All eight of the teams have already been practising in Italy, giving each team a chance to reacquaint themselves with the high-tech, foiling F50 catamarans. Two crews – Great Britain SailGP and New Zealand SailGP Teams – were also putting in some much needed practice time with new faces onboard.

Paul Goodison takes to the water helming the British team’s F50 for the first time

The current leader after the first event – the British SailGP Team – has swapped one Olympic gold medalist for another with Paul Goodison making his debut as the driver for the British team, replacing Ben Ainslie for the next two events. An interim shift, this substitution will have all eyes on the British team as it aims to retain its position at the top of the leaderboard.

Goodison said: “This is my first time ever sailing on the F50 and I was very impressed by the team and the boat and it was just great to get out sailing again. There is a little bit of apprehension for me going into my first event but, to be honest, I am just super excited and just can’t wait to get out there and line up with the other boats and start racing.”

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SailGP: Stunning opening weekend hails return of series

Sir Ben Ainslie’s British team took the opening victory in an action-packed SailGP in Bermuda, which saw close racing, collisions,…

Swiss born Arnaud Psarofaghis also had his first two days in the driving seat. The double European champion in the foiling Moth class, takes the wheel of the New Zealand SailGP Team after the date shift for the Tokyo Olympic Games sees Peter Burling and Blair Tuke step aside into a supporting role for the next two SailGP events in Plymouth and Aarhus.

Additional crew changes on the New Zealand boat include the arrival of James Wierzbowski as flight controller, and Jason Saunders as wing trimmer. The three new team members took to the water for the first time with their sights firmly set on moving up the leaderboard from fifth position.

Team during some warm up racing ahead of the regatta. Photo: Bob Martin / SailGP

Southern Italy will see the reemergence of Jimmy Spithill’s United States SailGP Team and Nathan Outteridge’s Japan SailGP Team after a nearly catastrophic collision in Bermuda that severely damaged both boats and took them out of the running for the event.

After a race against time, both boats returned to the water just in time for some vital training ahead of the season’s second event this weekend.

Japan SailGP Team flight controller Francesco Bruni said: “It is very exciting to be out sailing on the water, especially for me at my home event. I’m really looking forward to seeing a lot of fans. It’s gonna be very good racing in Taranto.”

The wing extension used in light winds and newly introduced for this second season have been used in practise. Photo: Thomas Lovelock / SailGP

Joining the F50s on the water over the weekend are the successful candidates of SailGP’s boundary-breaking and gender equal Inspire Racing program. Fans can expect an on-water showcase of young males and females racing for the future – nine sailors on WASZPs, and 18 sailors on RS Fevas – who will share the racecourse with the supercharged F50 foiling catamarans.

Action at the Italy Sail Grand Prix gets underway at 1:30 p.m. local on both Saturday 5 and Sunday June 6. Fans unable to attend can watch the live broadcast in Italy through official broadcast partners Rai Sport and Sky Italia, and by downloading the award-winning SailGP App. For details on how to watch globally visit SailGP.com/Watch.

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As part of a remix for this second full season of the foiling world-spanning race series, SailGP, each of the eight teams are to add one female athlete per team. Teams will be incentivised to include female athletes in rotation for ‘active roles’ and to include women in the sixth position, progressing to ‘practice and/or training in key roles’.

The Danish team announced early there will be two women in its squad, including Anne-Marie Rindom, a two-time World Champion and Olympic medalist.

Photo: Craig Greenhill for SailGP

The SailGP circuit, launched by Russell Coutts with backing from Larry Ellison, is an annual international series with similarities to the America’s Cup World Series, but sailed in foiling F50 catamarans. It features many big names from the America’s Cup, a competition which has not seen a women sailor on any team since America3’s Mighty Mary 26 years ago in 1995.

The SailGP Gender Equity Initiative is intended to ‘fast-track the development of top female sailors to race on F50s and perform at the highest level’.

To help achieve this, SailGP has set up a women’s committee which includes three-time Olympian and Ocean Race winner Carolijn Brouwer, Maria del Mar de Ros, CEO of Spain’s SailGP team and Emily Nagel, former Ocean Race crew member and data analyst specialist.

“This is a big step forward for women in professional sailing,” Brouwer comments. “SailGP is creating the opportunity for high-performance female sailors to compete alongside their male peers, in the world’s most advanced sailing league.

“This type of initiative will allow us to achieve true gender equity in the future.”

The teams are headed by some of the top names in racing. Peter Burling and Blair Tuke lead a team from New Zealand. Jimmy Spithill has newly taken the role of helm for a refreshed US team, Nathan Outteridge the Japanese challenge, Tom Slingsby the Australian team (and reigning champion) and Ben Ainslie leads the British team. There are also teams from Denmark and Spain for the series which began with the first SailGP regatta of this second full season in Bermuda at the end of April.

Ahead of this first event, New Zealand’s SailGP team announced that sailors Liv Mackay and Erica Dawson would be ‘immersed in their team’ for at least the opening event in Bermuda.

Sam Goodchild’s Leyton x Magenta programme will be developing opportunities for women sailors. Photo: Yann Riou/polaRYSE

Elsewhere in sailing

Meanwhile, the super-talented all-rounder Sam Goodchild, who is now heading up the Multi 50 campaign Leyton, is to offer opportunities to women sailors.

Organised in partnership with the , a charity dedicated to developing opportunities for women sailors, the Leyton x Magenta programme will comprise three-day clinics for aspiring offshore sailors which was held in France in April. It was open to ‘all female sailors keen to pursue a career in offshore sailing, in particular multihulls.’

Two additional clinics are planned in July and September in France and the UK.

“I know how hard it is to break into sailing, especially the offshore multihull class. There are some great female sailors out there that just need to get that lucky break and we are hoping that, through this process, we will be able to find sailors that could, in the future, join our team,” says Goodchild.

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The post Gender equality: How SailGP and others are driving female inclusion appeared first on Yachting World.

Sir Ben Ainslie’s British team took the opening victory in an action-packed SailGP in Bermuda, which saw close racing, collisions, capsizes and more as the eight foiling F50 catamarans fought it out in five fleet races and a final winner-takes-all race.

The opening weekend of SailGP season 2 looked set, for much of the weekend, to continue where the first season left off, with season 1 champions, Tom Slingsby’s Team Australia, the clear standout performer over the weekend of racing in Bermuda.

Slingsby and his team took an impressive four wins over the course of the weekend. However, when it really mattered, Sir Ben Ainslie’s Great Britain SailGP Team took the final win of the weekend and in so doing were crowned event winners.

With his team of Luke Parkinson, Iain Jensen, Matt Gotrel, Neil Hunter and Richard Mason, Ainslie managed to sail past the Aussies in the final podium race to win by just four seconds, claiming his place at the top of the season leaderboard.

The Brits had a disappointing first day of the regatta , finishing the opening day in sixth place of the eight boat fleet. But with racing designed to be decided on the final race, the event is simply a case of doing enough to qualify for the final race and it is anyone’s game from there.

Of the thrilling final Ainslie said: “It was a cracking race. It was awesome. It’s what we want to do it for; go against the top sailors in the world in conditions like this – it was perfect. It was a huge credit to the team, we really struggled yesterday, but we analysed what went wrong and today was a much better day and I am delighted with the result, it’s a great way to start the season.

Slingsby said: “It was a great race. We feel a little hard done by, as we sailed so well all week. But those are the rules – you’ve got to win that last race, and we were close but not quite there.”

The Brits get close to a capsize on the opening weekend of SailGP. Photo: Javier Salinas / SailGP

Great Britain and Australia were joined by France in the final race, with Besson’s team – with the addition of Great Britain’s Leigh McMillan onboard – securing its first ever podium finish in SailGP.

Elsewhere, there were plenty of dramatic moments with the F50’s sporting the smaller 18-meter wing for the first time in the building breeze. This smaller wingsail is part of the continual upgrades the fleet undergo from season to season, allowing the class to develop, but maintaining one-design racing between the identical boats.

Perhaps the biggest gasps of the weekend were reserved for newcomer to the series, Jimmy Spithill, at the helm of the US team. He had a nerve-wracking collision with Nathan Outteridge’s Japan team in the first race of the day – that took both boats out for the remainder of the racing and also saw Spithill’s F50 on its side on the Great Sound shortly after the collision. There was also a triple penalty for Phil Robertson’s Spanish team after a risky maneuver at the start of race five that perhaps cost the team its place in the final podium race, missing out by just one point.

America’s Cup winners and Olympic champions Peter Burling and Blair Tuke had a better day on their SailGP debut for New Zealand. Moving up from the bottom of the leaderboard after day one, to finish a respectable fifth place, just behind the Spanish team. They may still be learning the ropes to some extent but by their own high standards it will be an opening weekend to forget for two-time America’s Cup winners, Burling and Tuke.

Nicolai Sehested’s Denmark SailGP Team presented by Rockwool took sixth place. Japan and the United States sit at the bottom of the leaderboard after the day’s drama.

Photo: Bob Martin / SailGP

SailGP CEO Sir Russell Coutts said: “Quite simply that was the best racing I think I have ever seen on television for a sailing event. What a day, there was drama, fantastic quality of racing, lots of lead changes – it just had everything. Unfortunately it had a crash but you are going to get that in high level racing every now and then but it was really exciting stuff.

“I think it just showed again what a fabulous venue Bermuda is to run international sailing competitions and for a SailGP event, it is absolutely perfect. We missed the crowds due to the current pandemic but everyone saw what the racing was like and what a stunning backdrop Bermuda is and that’s the main thing. I couldn’t be more thrilled with Bermuda and we certainly want to come back for many years to come.”

Season Leaderboard:
1: Great Britain / 10 points
2: Australia / 9 points
3: France / 8 points
4: Spain / 7 points
5: New Zealand / 6 points
6: Denmark / 5 points
7: Japan / 4 points
8: United States / 3 points

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The post SailGP: Stunning opening weekend hails return of series appeared first on Yachting World.