WET ‘N WILD

The nature-fuelled race series aiming to rival that of Formula 1. Pitch sent Kieran Longworth to the South Coast to see how this salt-sprayed spectacle stacks up.

Many of the world’s major coastal cities bid to host a leg of the Sail Grand Prix. On that list in 2025, Los Angeles, New York, and Sydney sit proudly alongside Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and… Portsmouth.

Pompey might seem a little out of place in such company – far removed from the austere world of edible gold-leaf desserts – but competes toe to toe with the very best when it comes to entertainment. And this is showbiz after all.

For further context, that statement is written within earshot of Tom Grennan, the Bedford-born singer is, as I write this, belting out “A Little Bit of Love” on a rather chilly south coast. Much to the delight of the travelling company here in Southsea. And there’s worse soundtracks to pen a feature to, clearly.

“It’s about putting on a full spectacle,” says Marek Borowik, SailGP’s Director of Fan Engagement, as we chat post-race. “You’ve got racing right on the shoreline, music, simulators, flags waving everywhere – it’s a festival. And Portsmouth was an obvious place for us in the UK, the already arena-like coastline being set up as it is.”

As far as the racing goes – and the main reason this event holds its own with the best on the calendar – the action takes place just 100 yards from temporary 20,000-strong seating, with locals catching a glimpse for free from the neighbouring pebbled beach. A far cry from New York, where “folks in New Jersey stand a better chance of seeing anything without binoculars”, or so I was told, by a travelling Scotsman who attended both events – our conversation having been struck up by the British & Irish Lions jersey he was wearing.

There’s plenty going on beyond our exchange in the stands, with two helicopters filming from the patchy skies, young MCs doing their level best to fire up the mixed crowd, and course markers still being shifted into place mid-race – as is the nature of a floating finish. Before the action even began on Day One of two, the French boat (helmed by Quentin Delapierre) had its mainsail snap clean in half – the third time this year a boat has suffered such a fate – forcing the Tricolore to wave the white flag.

Great Britain, on the other hand, put in a brilliant performance on the event’s opening Saturday. Much to the delight of the travelling thousands. Led by Olympic gold medallist, Dylan Fletcher, the mixed gender crew (as is regulation in this sport) topped the qualifiers with a ‘fleet’ win and four top-three finishes out of four.

This is the seventh stop on the 2025 Rolex SailGP calendar, the series now in its sixth year returns to British waters for the first time since Plymouth 2022 and before that Cowes 2019. The naval city on debut boasts a unique aesthetic with its historic stonework defences framing the course, which we’ll get into later.

For those unaware, SailGP is sailing’s compressed, made-for-screen super league where identical 50-foot foiling catamarans (F50s), levitating on carbon appendages (foils), compete in a sort of Formula 1 on water. Powered by wind, and two ‘Grinders’ pedalling like hamsters on the carbon fibre hulls, crews trade closing speeds north of 100 km/h (54 knots) and often come to blows – or close to it.

The big money championship can count Real Madrid’s Kylian Mbappé, Hollywood’s Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds among its investors. Founders, American billionaire Larry Ellison and three-time America’s Cup victor Russell Coutts, say they want to transform a sport widely perceived, in the UK at least, as being elitist. If you can wrap your head around that.

The course itself promotes aggressive racing with two opposing choices of route, boats zig zag across the Southsea coastline like a disorganised swarm of bees, with the most forceful racing line dubbed ‘Hunting’ (which effectively sees a high-stakes game of professional chicken being played on the choppy waters). Turn-around between races is quick with all the ‘day’s play’ happening in a 90-minute window – avid explanation for Grinders returning to land looking rather haggard.

This season has welcomed an expansion of sorts, Brazil and Italy represent new flags on the start line, completing a 12-team grid that now reads (deep breath): ‘Bonds Flying Roos’ Australia, Emirates Great Britain, New Zealand (Black Foils), Spain, Rockwool Denmark, Canada, United States, Switzerland, France, Germany, Brazil, and Italy. With two more teams joining in 2026.

Home interest centres on the Emirates GBR boat, co-owned and steered strategically by Sir Ben Ainslie’s leadership group, with the aforementioned Dylan Fletcher ‘driving’ and three-time Olympic medallist Hannah Mills in the afterguard.

Hannah Mills’ gold medal-winning boat at Tokyo 2020.

Speaking to the strategist from Cardiff – who got into the sport after trying sailing on a family holiday in Cornwall – Mills says “it’s a recalibrated setup after Ainslie stepped back from the helm role to refocus broader campaign priorities.”

We’re speaking via video call a week on from the two-day race which, in her own words, saw the 37-year-old “act as the eyes and ears of the team.” It’s an initial description that feels like an understatement, given the reality of her position, which she explains further: “taking into account wind, current, surrounding landmarks, and 11 other boats, all while plotting the fastest route and avoiding potential season-defining collisions.”

“SailGP is unique in that 12 boats are contained within a relatively small racecourse. Often people think of sailing as something that happens way out on the horizon, but that’s far from the case.”

The remaining five crew roles are varied. Drivers take the bulk of public interest – with their race-ready faces plastered on location signage – and dictate both race strategy and starts. The Wing Trimmer manages sails to foster power, Flight Controller maintains pitch & ride height, and two Grinders (G1 & G2) feed the hydraulic systems that give the boat power (for comparison, America’s Cup teams have four high-wattage ‘Cyclors’, with recent innovations seeing them mount on-board bikes rather than the hand-powered systems in SailGP).

Watching the flight controller’s micro-corrections is just as fascinating. Too high and the foils cavitate – seeing the boat rise up like a kite – too low and the hulls splash down losing kinetic energy and all momentum. Each touchdown can surrender the race unless a rival also sticks such a manoeuvre. Them being rare in this high-performance world.

A silver medallist at London 2012, Mills went on to win Olympic gold in the women’s 470 class at both Rio and Tokyo. Switching disciplines, she says, “is something that comes relatively easily. There’s a wider change in approach, of course, but a lot of the principles are the same.

“I remember jumping in for the first time and realising the intricacies of going a lot faster. You can achieve so much more in these high-performance boats – and travelling at three to four times the speed of wind is pretty mind-blowing.”

The F50, she explains, “is as fast as it gets on water. These boats are big and if you position yourself between the wind and someone else, you can really affect their race. There’s a lot of cat and mouse about it, despite them being such structural giants in the water.”

“It’s pretty full-on, even before the race start. If you can get to Mark One (the first turn) positioned in the top few, you’ve got a good chance of finishing on the podium. Sitting back in the pack is an absolute melee but that’s what makes it so entertaining.”

Those starts the Olympian mentions are compressed into 90 seconds, and very much a “race within a race”. Over the course of the weekend in Portsmouth, the team that generated the best start went on to win more often than not. Timing the high-speed “burn and build” to hit the virtual line at full pace, on time, with clear water isn’t easy. Jump early and you cop distance penalties, too late and you swallow the pack’s turbulence and dirty air. Ruling the race null and void.

Strategy in Portsmouth, Mills continues, “meant layering wind over tidal currents and navigating the Solent ‘chop’ between the Isle of Wight and the mainland. But wind, on this occasion, was the defining factor. Fixed landmarks like Spinnaker Tower, the corner at Southsea Castle, and centuries-old forts still protruding from the water make plotting the best route more difficult – and patchy breeze is a strategist’s worst nightmare, seeing the boat rendered a sitting duck.”

Despite that complexity – plus the geometry of the course itself – local knowledge offered little advantage. “It’s such a unique stretch of water. None of us had sailed there before. Our perceived advantage, I think, came from the presence of the crowd and the surrounding atmosphere. Which was a dream.”

For the casual viewer, choosing the right side of a course might not seem so important, but as Mills explains, “even though both routes are the same distance, decisions can define the race. In Portsmouth, turning left around the buoy in front of the grandstand was most productive. As soon as the other teams caught onto that, our advantage slimmed. Then it becomes a case of everyone doing the same thing and getting trapped in dirty air. As a Strategist, I’m weighing up those variables constantly – and sometimes, taking the slower route, or backing off, can be the smartest move.”

As for spectators, knowledge and experience varies by the number. The grandstand welcomes a collection of sea-hardy vets, those there for the live-music, and STEM aficionados compiled into one sport-lovin’ arena.

Having spent six years in a similar role at Formula 1, Borowik – the aforementioned Director of Fan Engagement and Event Experience – is well placed to put on a show. He says, “It’s hard catering for everyone, and a constant battle to strike the right balance between education and entertainment.”

Festival polish is a significant part of the SailGP proposition, Tom Grennan’s Saturday main-stage set and Pete Tong’s Ibiza-classics closer on Sunday book-end the racing in a curated ‘Après-Sail’ that aims squarely at a younger, musically motivated audience.

This new audience is something to balance with the old guard, who have well-voiced opinions as comes with the territory in any sport. Borowick emphasises the need to evolve a sport that, until recently, had no real spectator culture, whilst acknowledging the core knowledgeable audience already present in what is now Sail GP’s seventh season.

“Our current demographic is, roughly speaking 39-years-old, and around 65 percent male,” he says. “But we’ve seen that shift as new teams come in and new audiences are welcomed all the time.”

Expect linen shirts and Musto rain jackets by the dozen, side-by-side with casuals, here for the vibe. It’s a mix that works, brilliantly. “It all sounds a bit extra,” Borowik concedes, “and we’ve by no means found our final answer, but with the sporadic nature of the racing, and people arriving two hours before the start of play, it’s important to keep everyone entertained throughout. And put on a good show. I love it, truly.”

Beneath performative entertainment, the sport’s hook is complete uniformity, every team sails the same ‘one-design development’, thus avoiding the cheque-book arms race of its petrol-fuelled cousin in Formula 1. It means that any given race can be won by any crew, irrespective of their form going into it. The 2025 leaderboard, as a result, is tightly packed – there being just five points separating first and fourth before the event (10 points are awarded to the event victor, and nine to second place with points decreasing by position in equal cadence from there). Making the sailing ample entertainment in itself.

SUNDAY

With Emirates GBR well placed to be one of three teams to qualify, all eyes turn to the decisive day of racing, where a winner would be crowned after three more fleet qualifiers and the resulting Final. After a midday downpour, conditions feel altogether tougher on this closing day, and it’s breezy out there off the south coast, real breezy. “The Solent channel can act like a wind tunnel,” Hannah Mills again, “it’s one of the tightest races on the calendar.”

As a result of some inclement weather, the collecting thousands seem keener to watch the racing on water that now looks considerably less like the duck pond it did before. Rain threatens but despite that, and with the local team in the reckoning, it’s much harder to find a seat. It’s a wholly race-focussed atmosphere on Day Two and everyone has a vested interest in the result.

As with Saturday, each fleet race is short (circa 12-15 minutes), followed by a brief interval that sees the winning team interviewed on water – an impressive adage, if not hard to hear in the windy stands, and even harder for that crew to make their way back to the resting pack.

With Emirates GBR all but qualified, the preliminary rounds on Sunday are hard to navigate, their finishes on the day drop to third, sixth, and seventh as a result.

Mills again says that “every manoeuvre comes with significant jeopardy, not just for a little nudge but in ending your weekend. Minimising tacks and gybes at this stage was a tough balance because you’re trying to stay race focussed whilst managing risk. We’re all hyper-competitive, obviously, and if you back off an inch, such is the strength of the fleet, you end up at the back and suddenly you've got it all to make up.”

“To then get ready for the final, against two of the best teams in the world – New Zealand and Switzerland – is a change in mindset altogether. The best thing to do is to race smooth, keeping the boat on the foils is best practice and makes it so much easier on choppy waters, massively reducing drag. The course is a lot less cluttered in the Final, there being only three boats, so it’s a different task altogether, and the tactics become even more convoluted, in the best way.

“We got into a battle with the Swiss boat at the start, leaving The Black Foils (driven by three-time America’s Cup-winning helmsman Peter Burling) in clean water and able to get ahead. To catch up such a clinical team from there is almost impossible, especially when they’re on the foils as often as they are – 100 per cent of the race being a marker for success – but second was a good result nonetheless.”

For the bigger picture, the placings saw New Zealand vault to the top of the season standings on 54 points with Australia (52) and Spain (51) falling behind – a swing that tightens narrative stakes heading to the next leg in Sassnitz, Germany, with just four legs to go. And at the time of writing, the Brits sit on 50 points, well within reach.

The full season reward carries a multi-million-dollar prize pool, and comes to a head in Mubadala Abu Dhabi, to be presented on the last weekend of November. Spain took home the $1 million in 2024 and are well placed to repeat. As for who gets there, for all the season’s graft, the Emirate’s capital is the one event that truly matters. Resulting points from fleet races (of which there are a possible 70), are added to the season tally to determine who makes it through to the Championship-deciding Grand Final between the top three teams.

It's all a bit knotty but effectively means any one team is ‘in the race’ all the time. Keeping investors and fans interested throughout, whilst giving significant enough weighting to consistent year-long performers.

With all that in mind, the travelling circus re-stages on the Baltic next month. And as days out go, the SailGP is definitely worth having on any sporting bucket list. Ticketed or otherwise.