Sydney Harbour Hosts Grand Prix Sailing

Great cities need world class events and Sydney’s Harbour is one on the most internationally recognizable places to host the start of the Sail GP series for 2019. Six countries will contest the two day event culminating in a two boat only final. Great Britain, USA, France, China, Japan and Australia will all contest the tight harbour course. 

F50 catamarans are identical, which neutralizes the boats advantage to its crew, the most contentious yet innovative aspect of the iconic America’s Cup. Five sailors crew each high performance state of the art craft and all sailors are Olympic or world champions so the best of the best. Australia has Olympic Gold medalist, Tom Slingsby as its skipper and Legendary Iron Man and Olympic swimmer, Ky Hurst as a grinder.

This will be a close contest and an exciting series. The speeds which could be reached are as fast as 50 knots (92km per hr) and the boats can sail at three times the wind speed. Collisions are the most concerning because of this speed on water and the "hydrofoiling" nature of the boats which has them almost completely out of the water for most of the race.

Yesterday there were three races and as a result Japan, skippered by Australian, Nathan Outteridge is leading with one win and two, 2nd places. Australia's hopes were lifted after a first race 5th place when Slingsby convincingly won the second and third races. Today is the final day of racing in Sydney before the series moves on to San Francisco in May and New York in June.

To see more on the Sail GP series by Kymbal Dunne, go to kymbaldunne.com