Rod Davis
Cool days afloat
I went to the SailGP regatta last month in Auckland, to see what it was all about. Like almost everyone now, I have watched previous SailGP regattas on YouTube. Occasionally live on TV, but most of the time post-event, where I could skip to the races and not have to cope with the commentators’ hype and blather. I
understand they have a job to do, but they can annoy me sometimes. Auckland was a great pick to see the SailGP show in person –
the most F50s racing to date, the biggest attendance in the four years they have been up and running and winds of 15-20kt. The perfect script. As everyone knows, or should at least accept, SailGP is targeted
at a much wider audience than just yachties. Coutts has made no bones about this the entire time he has been pushing the concept. To that end many normal sailboat racing terms get simplified to
make them more understandable. Dumbed down in real terms. Example: wind speeds and boat speeds are measured in kilometres per hour, rather than knots. Easier for ‘Joe average’ to understand and a bigger number with which to impress people. The actual racing is just a part of the marketing and TV package.
It has to be. The telecast is an hour and a half long, and the racing makes up just 40 minutes of it. Eyeballs on the TV/internet is what SailGP lives or dies on. For that reason the sailing needs to come across as much as a reality TV show as a sporting competition. And the show needs to be kept ‘sticky’ the whole time to keep the masses engaged. Replays of races and crashes, endless talking about the top
speed of the day, foiling percentages, the danger of racing on the edge of control, interviews before and after each race, hopefully with some cheeky one-liners creating controversy (gosh, they will miss Phil Robertson, he had some real zingers!) all help make the show sticky. At least to some. And sticky is what keeps people coming back. Initiatives like
34 SEAHORSE
requiring a female on every boat; coaches talking to their teams in real time and on air; soon to be introduced electric boost motors to get the boat onto the foils in light wind. All become part of the marketing and fertiliser to kindle interest among the wider public. SailGP and Auckland put on a grand show last month. Here are
my observations. #1 There is an A and a B fleet. Like Formula One where Red Bull,
Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes battle for the podium and the rest make up the numbers. Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain and Spain battle for the top spots. The others can win a race, but to be in the top three in the end the stars would need to align perfectly for them. The teams that have more America’s Cup and/or F50 experience
have a significant advantage over less experienced teams. That second nature ability of the whole team to instantly know how to keep the boat foiling fast through tacks, gybes and mark roundings. Or getting it to ‘pop’ onto the foils before the others. That sets the podium teams apart. It’s got to be hard for the new teams to get air time in the boats
to just learn the basics, with only two or three days’ sailing before each regatta. Baptism while under fire for the wannabees. #2 Sailing is so weather dependent – like cricket and hot air
ballooning. Rain, or worse, no wind, and Christ himself couldn’t draw the crowds in. This year Auckland had the luck of a lotto winner, sunny 17-22kt (sorry, old habits, 31-40kph) put the boats on the edge of control making for very exciting mark roundings. That was a key element to the success of the regatta… the one that no one can control. What the SailGP team could control was making the viewing
accessible to the public. To that extent an 8,000-seat stadium was constructed, with an additional 550 VIP viewing spots, all on the water’s edge overlooking the leeward mark and the finish line. On the water there was an officially flagged spectator fleet of 295 boats. Plus 20 superyachts. A seat was $NZ200 and spectator
MAX RANCHI
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