SailGP trialed a split-fleet racing format during Thursday’s practice race session ahead of this weekend’s ITM New Zealand Sail Grand Prix in Auckland.
Trialing of the new format comes as the league expects to expand to a 12 boat fleet this season, alongside ambitions to increase the fleet even further in the future.
An on-going criticism of the SailGP league circuit has been the shortness of the individual races and of the overall event. Often magnified by weather conditions forcing the races to be shortened or abandoned after long spells of non-foiling drifting.
This reputation for a lack of involved competition has led to the new race format and the upgraded titanium ‘T-foils, across the F50 fleet.
It has also led to publicity for the events to stress the possibilty (hope of) of spectacular near misses and handling mishaps . . . Leading to ‘A baptism by fire’ ‘pretty crazy conditions for our first day out on the T-Foils’ and how about, “It could be carnage:” to pump up expectations.
And an over-excited style of commentating to convince anyone watching that they should be on the edge of their seats, as a random gust finally lifts a team onto their foils to overtake another stationary team.
In this new format, a race weekend would consist of nine races rather than the current six, all of which would be covered in the 90-minute broadcast window.
To tackle the problem of half the fleet (or more) being out of contention after the first mark, the proposed new format in its current state would see teams split into two groups of six, seeded on the season championship standings.
Each group will compete in two fleet races on both Saturday and Sunday, before the top two teams in from each group proceed into the four-boat podium race.
For the recent trial the league’s teams were split into two groups; Group A and B seeded on the 2025 Season Championship standings. Both groups took part in two fleet races before the top four teams on points proceeded into the winner-takes-all Final.
This saw New Zealand, Australia, Mubadala Brazil, Germany and ROCKWOOL Racing go head to head in Group A, while Spain, Northstar Canada, Emirates GBR, the United States, Red Bull Italy and Switzerland competed in Group B.
The practice Final meanwhile saw Taylor Canfield’s United States sub in for the Kiwis and Emirates GBR lead off the start line. Despite being shut out of the start line by the Americans, the Aussies battled back from a last place start to overtake all three boats and cross the finish line first and steal the win.
For this weekends (18-19 January) Auckland event will stick with the standard one fleet format.
Russell Coutts has also revealed that the low-speed foiling problems are being tackled.
The first set of new low-speed T-Foils have also been tested in Auckland – they will allow the boats to foil in about 1.5 knots less windspeed than the current light air boards (LABs).
The new foils are mainly made of carbon with a central titanium piece and therefore weigh less for use in lighter wind conditions. The Kiwis tested the foils in up to 15 knots of windspeed and apparently the designers were happy with the results.
These are now in production and should be introduced to the fleet from New York onwards.
Other items in the design upgrade list are new high speed rudders (already tested), and a new configuration of light wind wing sails
ITM New Zealand Sail Grand Prix | Auckland takes place on 18-19 January, with racing from 3 am – 4.30am BST (4pm-5.30pm NZDT).
