SailGP: "Everything will be faster and more unstable" - Germany SailGP Team wants to score points in Sydney
Tatjana Pokorny
· 22.02.2024
For the fifth time since the inaugural season in 2019, the SailGP fleet will be racing off Sydney next weekend. And once again, the teams are anticipating punchy conditions, especially for the last training session on Friday morning and the first of the two race days on Saturday. After many light wind events this season, the small foils and medium wings may be used. For German helmsman Erik Heil and his team, this means preparing for new challenges in their first year of training.
Motivated by their best result of the season, fifth place in Abu Dhabi, Erik Heil and the Germany SailGP Team will be competing in Australia. "We've only had a few comparisons in conditions like these so far," says Erik Heil. The two-time Olympic bronze medallist remembers: "We once sailed a race like this in Taranto. We had a chance there. It wasn't completely out of the question that we could sail with them."
Our capacities will still be heavily trapped in the boat in strong turning and pressurised conditions" (Erik Heil)
At the same time, the 34-year-old knows that in his first SailGP year, his team will still have to learn the ropes in the professional league with the fast F50 catamarans. He says: "If you're realistic, we still have a lot of catching up to do in the conditions with small foils. Everything becomes faster and more unstable. At the last event, we were only one point away from the final. A lot can happen there. Nevertheless, I can also see how well the others are sailing the boat. You can tell that they've spent a few hundred days on the boat. Especially in these conditions."
The expected conditions in Sydney will challenge the youngest newcomers to the Formula 1 of sailing. "I reckon our capacities will still be very much trapped in the boat in strong turning and pressurised conditions. We will once again focus very much on the manoeuvres in training. So that we can get back up to 90, 95 per cent maximum speed as quickly as possible afterwards. As quickly as possible. The focus is on foiling turns. That we come out of the turn with a really good angle so that we can accelerate as quickly as possible afterwards."
SailGP: Australian super joker for the Kiwis
Together with driver Erik Heil, wing trimmer Stuart Bithell, flight controller James Wierzbowski, grinders Dan Morris and Joanathan Knottnerus-Meyer and strategist Anna Barth will be in action next weekend (24 and 25 February). The on-site coach is Lennart Briesenick. It will also be interesting to see how the runners-up in the season standings fare this weekend: the New Zealand team, which recently won in Abu Dhabi, will have to make do without champion helmsman Peter Burling, who is back home for the birth of his first child. He will be replaced by Australian super joker Nathan Outteridge in his home country.
An exciting home match is on the cards for the Australian leaders of the season standings: Tom Slingsby and the Australia SailGP Team are aiming to win the eighth of 13 regattas in the 2023/2024 season on their home turf. After seven of 13 SailGP summits, they lead the series with 56 points ahead of New Zealand (50 points) and the USA (43 points). The newcomers from Germany (16 points) moved up to ninth place in the season standings for the first time with their recent strong performance in Abu Dhabi, ahead of the bottom-placed team from Switzerland (14 points).
The SailGP races will once again be organised by Wedo Sports will be broadcast live. Two-time Olympic 49er bronze medallist and Heil foresailor Thomas Plößel and record Bundesliga winner Tobias Schadewaldt will commentate on the races. Early riser qualities are required in Germany: live coverage starts at 6 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday (24 and 25 February)!
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Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
