You’ve got to hang on for dear life on the SailGP F50 catamaran whose crew are all-conquering race champions.
I’m listed as the sixth sailor on Australia’s all-conquering SailGP F50 catamaran, something of a flattering title since I’m the only oneBut sitting behind multiple world champion Tom Slingsby on the $6 million twin-hulled race boat does provide the ideal way to see just how frantic this sport is.Slingsby is the Australian driver , and our opportunity came on the Thursday warm-up for the Singapore round last month.
But suddenly the God of Journalism – not the most reliable of deities these days – blew along the Strait. The other boats picked up pace, lifting into the air. And within minutes of releasing the rope we were too, rising like a seaplane to glide, almost silently, 1.2 metres above the briny deep. Just as quickly, what was meant to be a mere shakedown turned deadly serious.
COVID-19 played havoc with the SailGP schedule, but season three is well under way and the boats will be racing in Sydney for the third time, next weekend. Nine national teams will compete en route to a May grand final in San Francisco with a million-dollar prize. There have been two such grand finals so far, and Slingsby and crew have won both.
Our performance was slightly compromised by my distinct lack of strategy, and my decision to stay still. I had been trained how to run across the netting and it looked easy enough. But to add to the leaning and everything else were the surprisingly high G forces during turning. The F50 seems to dig in and turn in its own length; it’s not quite the vision-blurring force of a race car on slick tyres but it’s far more force than you’d ever expect on a sailboat that isn’t in the process of crashing.
The French boat, a little further away, is burying its left hull and looks ready to up-end, but it comes good and rejoins what is supposed to be a shakedown but is more like a bar-room brawl. These guys can’t just warm up. When they see another boat, they have to beat it.
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