SAILING S TEERS INTO NEW ERA
SYDNEY Harbour will transform into a high- speed freeway when it hosts the fastest sail- powered crafts ever to race on its waters and an Aussie team boasting Olympic and America’s Cup “rock stars” along with a famous surf ironman.
The cutting- edge, wingsailed 50- footers raced at the last America’s Cup have been upcycled and renamed F50s for a new nation- versus- nation sailing series kicking off in Sydney in February.
The souped- up foiling catamarans are tipped to hit speeds in excess of 53 knots – close to 100km/ h.
Former World Sailor of the Year and London Olym- pic champion Tom Slingsby will skipper Team Australia in the five- event SailGP series, which boasts a winner- takesall match- race finale with a prize purse of US$ 1 million.
“There’s a bit of pressure then but it could be a big advantage having Sydney as the first event,” laughed Slingsby, who has won two America’s Cups for US computer billionaire Larry Ellison’s Oracle Racing team.
“To be able to sail for Australia is a dream come true.”
The eight- time world champion has hand- picked Olympic swimmer and multiple world ironman surf star Ky Hurst, young Olympic sailing star Jason Waterhouse, and America’s Cup teammates Sam Newton and Kyle Langford to race.
The spectacular F1- style racing is an attempt to sell sailing to the masses and will be broadcast on Fox Sports.
While America’s Cup legend Russell Coutts is the face of the series, it is being backed by Ellison, who in 1998 raced his yacht Sayonara to a line- honours win in the deadly Sydney to Hobart that claimed six lives.
The new series will feature six teams – from Britain, America, China, Japan, France and Australia.
Sydney will be the first stop of the 2019 tour, which then moves to San Francisco in May, New York in June, Cowes, UK in August and Marseilles, France in September.