SailGP brings elite boats to bay
New racing league evokes America’s Cup
Remember the 2013 America’s Cup on San Francisco Bay? When Oracle Team USA came from way behind to beat Emirates Team New Zealand?
High-tech sailboat racing is back on the bay, only this time, it’s the fledgling SailGP racing league.
Like the Cup boats in San Francisco and in Bermuda in 2017, these are carbon-fiber catamarans that practically can fly, thanks to hydrofoils. Like the Bermuda boats, they’re 50 feet long rather than the 72-foot monsters that frightened sealife here in 2013.
They’re smaller, but they are the world’s fastest wind-powered race boats. These F50s can go more than three times as fast as the wind. In San Francisco, teams are hoping to hit 50 knots (about 60 mph) — which is sort of like the sound barrier for racing sailboats.
After racing in Australia in February, the circuit makes its U.S. debut in San Francisco this week. There will be three
fleet races Saturday and two more Sunday, followed by a match race of the top two boats for the championship. Each race lasts only about 15 minutes, in an effort to heighten the excitement.
The current teams represent the U.S., Australia, Great Britain, China, France and Japan. Spectators should get a good look at the inshore racing, as was the case for the America’s Cup.
The organizers call it “highadrenaline” sailing, and after a close look at some practice races Tuesday, it’s hard to argue with them. The boats are so fast they’d make Aquaman marvel.
“It’s a blast,” U.S. skipper Roman Kirby said. “I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t fun. You’re trying to keep your team safe. There’s a lot going on out there. The boats are hard to control and pretty powered up.”
On Tuesday, winds were high and the water choppy. The ebb tide was running against the wind, making the sailing especially difficult.
“It was just survival, really,” Australia skipper Tom Slingsby. “We were trying to get around the racetrack without crashing too much.”
Slingsby, the strategist for Oracle Team USA in 2013, guided his team to victory in first SailGP race in Sydney, but the winds were just 5-8 knots there. Here they were 20 knots.
Each team has a $5 million annual budget, with another $2 million going to the general circuit budget. With six teams, that’s a cool $42 million per year, currently being picked up by Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.
Unlike the America’s Cup, in which the winning team gets to write the rules for the next regatta, this is one big cooperative and all racing data is shared. The season also includes stops in New York; Cowes, England, and Marseilles, France.
There’s a $1 million payoff to the season champion, which is $1 million more than the winner of the America’s Cup gets for its sponsoring club, although it does get a fancy trophy.
Down the road, of course, SailGP hopes to pick up other investors. Whether it translates well to TV will be a big factor in that enterprise.
Each boats weighs nearly 2 tons and has a 78-foot mast for the main sail. A jib provides more horsepower and helps with tacking and jibing. A battery powers the hydraulics.
“The control system and the electronics on board are so much more complicated (than the AC boats) and very refined,” said Japan skipper Nathan Outterridge, an Australian who steered Sweden’ Artemis Racing in the past two America’s Cups. “They’re way more efficient and a lot more fun to sail.”
Russell Coutts, a renowned America’s Cup skipper and the CEO of Oracle Team USA when it successfully defended the Cup in San Francisco, is the CEO of SailGP.
He had long dreamed of a worldwide catamaran series. Unlike the Cup, which runs at seemingly random intervals, SailGP plans to run every year.