Billed as the fastest racing on water, it took less than one official race for the new SailGP season to get spicy.
As the league prepares for season six to get under way in Perth this weekend, they will do so without the inclusionof the Spanish team.
In what has turned into an eventful week of practice, the Spanish outfit’s F50 foiling catamaran was damaged after a nosedive and could not be repaired in time for racing over the weekend.
They weren’t the only team to be impacted by the windy and wavy conditions on the Indian Ocean off Bathers Beach in Fremantle.
The Australians were sweating the availability of wing trimmer Iain Jensen, after he sustained a knee injury during a turn on Thursday. For Friday’s practice session, the Flying Roos had called in Glenn Ashby to fill in for Jensen and grinder Kinley Fowler said Jensen was being assessed before the weekend.
His was the second injury of the week, after Artemis Sweden wing trimmer Chris Draper, who Jensen replaced on board the Australian boat in the off-season, needed stitches after his face was cut when he fell face-first into the netting at pace during a manoeuvre on Tuesday. Draper was back on board for Thursday’s practice, adding a protective face mask to his safety equipment.
Artemis Sweden wing trimmer Chris Draper wore a protective mask after a facial injury during practice racing in Perth. Photo / SailGP
“We take the safety process seriously. I think our safety protocols are absolutely the best of the best in the sport and we’re constantly striving to get those better each time,” SailGP chief executive Sir Russell Coutts told the Herald.
“But this is a venue that demands respect. The analogy would be like in motor racing, if you’re in wet conditions on hard tyres, you have to throttle back. There are times in this racing where you will have to throttle back.
“This is extreme sport. They’re the best athletes in the world and, I think they all know this, there’s going to need to be a level of maturity about how they manage their way around the course.”
Teams are always going to try to maximise their performance on the water, however, Coutts stressed the importance of balance.
Outside of the threat of injuries when a team crashes into the water – or another boat – at high speed, such incidents can also be costly in their quest for the season title.
SailGP does not give any form of redress to teams whose boats are damaged by their own fault, meaning they leave the event without adding any points to their season tally.
“If you damage the boat, you don’t get any benefit. They’ve got to be smart about the way they manage their boats around this race track – and it’s the first event of the season, too.”
Although the league has considered moving to a split-fleet format for racing over the past year, it will continue to contest all-in fleet races despite the inclusion of a 13th team.
That will make jostling for position in the starting box tighter, leaving little room for error off the starting line. However, it looks likely to be the last season of that format. A 14th team is set to be added in 2027, which would involve the teams splitting into groups of seven for fleet racing at events, and Coutts indicating the rights to that team had already been sold.
“The teams all wanted to keep it as one fleet,” Coutts said of this season’s format.
“We will move to split fleet in [2027] when we add the 14th team... then build it out to eight and eight, nine and nine, and 10 and 10.”
This weekend’s event in Perth is significant on a number of fronts for the league. It will be the first time SailGP has held an event in Perth, its first with 13 teams on the ground, and the 50th event since the league began racing in 2019.
“It’s come a long way. The growth has been phenomenal. Our plan is to expand to 20 teams, and, in the distance, once we can tune our logistical solutions we’re going to add more events, and I think the future’s very, very bright.”
Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.
