SailGP Championship
Several BAADS members went to see the SailGP Championship held the weekend of March 26-27 outside of the St. Francis yacht club. The boats used by the SailGP teams are F50’s, a cutting-edge one-design catamaran sailed only by world-class athletes and funded by deep pockets. A culmination of 10 years of development in high-performance, foiling, multi-hull racing, the F50 was the first boat to hit 50 knots/57.5 mph during racing and has a predicted top speed of over 52.2 knots/60 mph. Each crew also included one woman, which was “about time” grumbled by all of the women racers
Large grandstands were set up so the crowd could hear the spirited audio descriptions and view all of the action up close on a huge video monitor. Never one to disappoint, the San Francisco weather was wet, wild and windy on both days but especially Sunday challenging these expert sailors and fans alike. In between the thrilling races, several races of small boats and kite boards were held keeping the crowd entertained with their theatrics. The kite boarders in particular were fun to watch because their boards also used foils so they flew through the water as well as the sky with some doing flips while in the air.
The racing itself was spectacular on both days with eight teams competing for the $1 million prize as well as bragging rights. The teams were Australia skippered by Tom Slingsby, Great Britain, Japan, Denmark, New Zealand, France, Spain and USA skippered by America’s Cup legend, Jimmy Spithill.
To read more about the Championship and see video of all the action including collisions, click here.
On Sunday, two of the races were abandoned and restarted — including the Grand Final itself due to a whale entering the racecourse. There were also collisions between France and New Zealand and a violent crash when Spain hit US and tore her rudder off. Once the race was restarted, the Aussies beat out Japan and the US to prove their talent once again. Once safely on dry land, wild cheers greeted their lifting of the Championship trophy in the San Francisco race village.
Despite losing in the final, it was incredible that the US even managed to race at all, having suffered serious hull damage when the Spanish crashed into their boat during the opening race of the day. Notwithstanding the rapid repair work ensuring they could race, and a huge number of fans cheering them on from the shore, Spithill’s team only managed a third place finish in the final, continuing his record of never having actually won a SailGP event.
To see all the action including the collisions up close and personal, click here for video of the regatta.