If you were out and about in lower Manhattan this weekend—or maybe caught a surprising and colorful flash of speed as you crossed the Brooklyn Bridge—you’re likely wondering: Just what were those enormous and lightning-quick catamarans doing in New York Harbor? (If you were on Governor’s Island, you likely know already, as that’s where thousands of spectators gathered for the best views.)
The quick answer: It was the return of SailGP—currently in its fourth season of ’round-the-world competition—which aims to do nothing less than reinvent and reinvigorate sailing as we know it. (The tour hasn’t raced in the city since its inaugural year in 2019.)
The first indication that this wasn’t your grandfather’s clubby, country-club take on sailing? Friday morning’s press conference for the Mubadala New York Sail Grand Prix. Gathering the 10 drivers for the 10 teams—each of them representing one nation—at Hudson Yards, 99 floors up, the proceedings were variously confrontational and aggressive, even veering into the territory of trash-talking: USA’s Taylor Canfield (sporting a jacket from Tommy Hilfiger, a new sponsor of the American team) called Canada’s Phil Robertson “arrogant,” while Robertson taunted Canfield’s relative lack of success on the water by saying, “At some point, you’ve gotta walk the walk.” (“Everybody likes a bit of gossip,” allowed Giles Scott of the Emirates Great Britain team.)
Shortly after the press conference, Vogue sat down with SailGP’s managing director, Andrew Thompson, for a bit of 101 on the fast-growing global sport. (But first, a bit of clearing the air: “I think those guys [Canfield and Robertson] genuinely hate each other,” he said.)
How it’s done: The New York race weekend was the 12th event in a 13-event season (coursing from Saint-Tropez to Dubai to Sydney to Bermuda, among other destinations), with the next and final event happening in San Francisco on July 13 and 14. Each weekend features two days of racing, comprised of six fleet races; like in Formula 1, the winner is awarded 10 points, the second-place finisher 9, and on down to the 10th-place finisher, who earns one point. At the end of the two days, the top three points-winners race each other in a winner-takes-all final battle.
Unlike America’s Cup races, which can last several hours, carried out on slower, single-hull boats constructed differently by different countries, SailGP teams all race the same boats: sleek, F50 catamarans equipped with magical-seeming foils that elevate the hulls above the water to make the boats essentially fly, reaching speeds of up to 60 m.p.h. Each race lasts only 15 minutes, taking the teams from checkpoint to checkpoint, but with the most thrilling parts of the racing taking place closest to shore, to ensure a vivid spectating experience.
Each team is comprised of six people on the boat: a strategist at the back (think of a general or a quarterback, whose job it is to read the wind, the boat, and the race and direct the team in an effective plan); a driver in front of the strategist to steer the boat; a wing-trimmer to control the acceleration and speed of the boat; a flight controller to adjust the ride height of the foils; and two grinders, whose heart-pounding job it is to, yes, crank winches to move the boat’s wing back and forth to capture the wind as directed.
“There are six people on that boat, and if any one of them isn’t doing their job to the best of their ability…” Hannah Mills, 36—a Rolex testimonee, the strategist of the Emirates Great Britain team, and the most successful female sailor in Olympic history, with two gold medals and a silver—doesn’t bother to finish the thought, though the answer is quite clear: Otherwise, disaster. (It’s not uncommon for SailGP boats to capsize, or even collide.)
To create a single turn requires 60 independent and exquisitely coordinated calls and actions. Now, picture those 60 actions taking place at 60 m.p.h., with one boat mere feet away from your starboard side racing the same line, while another boat seems to be on a 90-degree collision course with you from the port side—and all six teammates are running from one hull to another.
“This type of sailing—foiling—really started coming in around the 2013 America’s Cup,” says Mills, “but it’s traditionally been dominated by guys, so there’s been this big experience gap and opportunity gap in terms of bringing more women into the sport. It’s something we’ve been trying to close as quickly as we can, and I think it’s the best way to showcase the sport to attract young people.” Each SailGP team has at least one woman, some as many as three, on the water, and they work across all positions—including the brutal job of grinding. (SailGP also has an arsenal of women running the show from behind the scenes: The tour’s chief content officer, CMO, and CFO are all women.)
Unlike so many people in the world of competitive sailing, Mills—who’s from Cardiff, Wales, and the only mom racing SailGP—didn’t grow up on the water and wasn’t introduced to sailing by her parents. “My family didn’t sail,” she says. “I remember going on holidays to the southwest coast of England, and I think mum and dad were just sick of having me around all the time. My brother got to go on a sailing course earlier, and when I finally got my go, I just fell in love with the freedom of being on the ocean and steering a boat on your own, no parents—the most insane thing for an eight-year-old to be able to do. From there, we went back home to Cardiff, and we found a tiny little reservoir and some boats where I could just jump in and have a go, and then I just started racing straight away.”
Is SailGP successful? Indeed: The teams have become a rather hot property for Hollywood investors, former major sports franchise owners, and others excited about entering an emerging sports-related investment without knocking billions of dollars into an NBA or NFL team. Each race garners 15 million viewers in 212 markets, with a recent race on CBS attracting 1.78 million viewers from the US alone—the most Americans to watch sailing in 30 years.
Starting next year, another race—the Rolex Switzerland Sail Grand Prix on Lake Geneva—will be added to the schedule, while another team—Brazil—makes its SailGP debut, and the competition seems to be here to stay: Rolex recently announced a new ten-season partnership with SailGP, which will bring us all the way to. . . season 13. (Rolex—SailGP's global presenting partner and official timepiece—has a decades-long history with the sport of sailing, dating back to a 1958 partnership with the New York Yacht Club, and today is the title sponsor of no less than 15 major international events.)
The tour is also trying to do things differently in a way that’s refreshing. Given that their field of play is essentially the ocean, zero-waste, renewable energy, and sustainability initiatives are foregrounded—and, along with the winner’s trophy that the teams are competing for, there’s a separate Impact League Trophy. At a midday conference at NeueHouse near Madison Square, SailGP panels centered on all of the above occupied much of the day, with partners from the Billion Oyster Project, Parley for the Oceans, and RISE involved. (“Let’s face it—sailing is pretty white,” said Diahann Billings-Burford, CEO of RISE, who is working to make the sport less so.) Assia Grazioli-Venier, the founder of Muse Capital and an investor in SailGP (and previously the first woman and youngest member on the board of Italian soccer giant Juventus), spoke about gender equity and sustainability.
After decades of competition in which women had essentially no place, things finally seem to be coming together, one step at a time—sometimes, quite literally. “The F50 is a boat designed by men for men,” Mills says. “I had to have a step put in so I could get myself up from the floor.” There’s a small pause before Mills, who is at once confident and modest, allows herself to note: “All the boats have them now.”
As for that race in New York Harbor? It all came down to New Zealand and the supposedly “arrogant” Canada squaring off against Mills and her Emirates Great Britain boat, with perennial powerhouse New Zealand emerging the victor. Call us biased, but if Mills and company lost this battle, we think they’re winning the bigger war.
In October—a mere 173 years after its first running—Mills will compete in the first-ever Women’s America’s Cup in Barcelona. “Take SailGP and the Women’s America’s Cup together, and suddenly they’re creating this pool of women—like 40 to 50 women—who, by the end of October, will have so much more of this really rare and really incredible experience in sailing these kind of boats,” Mills says. “It’s just fantastic.”
