As if someone had gone to Saint-Tropez and pressed the button: just in time for the Rockwool France Sail Grand Prix, the Mistral is peppering the Côte d'Azur. Just a few days ago, Boris Herrmann's Malizia team and the entire Ocean Race Europe fleet had to battle through a leaden calm in the early stages of leg five. These scenes were blown away on Thursday in Saint-Tropez.
SailGP in France: Dancing with the mistral
On the contrary: the Mistral even prevented the teams from training on Thursday, which will now open the two-day SailGP summit on the Riviera on Friday (12 September) with a cold start. With gusts of around 25 knots, warm-up exercises were out of the question on Thursday. This means that all teams will go straight into the competition on Friday without much familiarisation. For league boss Russell Coutts, the abundance of wind is a reason to be happy.
The mistral came up just in time." Russell Coutts.
The SailGP conductor is looking forward to the hot action on the course, which is always associated with a lot of wind. Winds of around 40 kilometres per hour are expected on Friday. According to the league, these are values "right at the upper end of the wind range for the F50 fleet of twelve speeding foilers".
Quentin Delapierre should know. The driver of the French SailGP team sailed for France in the last America's Cup. The challenging team was the Société Nautique de Saint-Tropez. Delapierre and his team will have the fans on the French Riviera on their side. Delapierre said the day before the race started: "Tomorrow it could look a bit like two years ago here." The 33-year-old was recalling "an incredible race day, right on the limit", when the French team set a new speed record (99.94 km/h).
Will the Sassnitz speed record hold in Saint-Tropez?
This record has just been broken in Sassnitz. At the SailGP German premiere, Nicolai Sehested and his team Rockwool Denmark reached 103.93 km/h on the Baltic Sea against the backdrop of Rügen's chalk cliffs. Quentin Delapierre said: "If it goes like that again tomorrow, we'll be super happy. We never race for the speed record, but when you break it, it's always something very special."
The good news for the teams from Brazil and the USA, who had to retire in Sassnitz with a serious breakage, had already been announced. After intensive treatment by SailGP Technologies, both boats are on course to be ready for the weekend. Although final checks were still outstanding, the tech team of around 40 men and women did a great job, said Russell Coutts. 4,000 project hours have gone into the demolished boats, which will now face the pressurised challenges of Saint-Tropez.
Martine Grael explained that her team still had to carry out the commissioning before the races, but the double Olympic champion was optimistic. The top teams in the league have no such worries at the moment. Six racing teams have already won at least once in eight events this season: Peter Burling's New Zealand Black Foils, the Bonds Flying Roos around SailGP record winner Tom Slingsby, Los Gallos with the 49er Olympic champions Diego Botin and Florian Trittel, Canada's Team NorthStar, Emirates GBR and France. The power density at the top has become broad.
Progress on the SailGP expansion front
Shortly before the first starting gun on Friday at 1.30 pm, Russell Coutts also gave an update on the league's progress on the expansion front. The New Zealander, himself an Olympic champion in the Finn Dinghy, five-time America's Cup winner and one of the all-time best in his sport, announced that a thirteenth team had been sold to an as yet unnamed group. This was achieved as part of a worldwide tendering process.
We have some exciting news - Team 13 will be announced in the next few weeks, so we're really looking forward to that." Russell Coutts
A fourteenth team, originally also targeted for league entry in the upcoming sixth SailGP season, is not expected to arrive until 2027. According to Coutts, the background to this decision is that the existing fleet has been prioritised. Specifically, the decision has been made to declare the latest F50 catamaran a training boat in the long term. "I think this will make a big difference to the future of the league. It's a fantastic solution for new and existing teams to train their athletes."
Three European events before the Abu Dhabi final
Including the SailGP in Saint-Tropez, there are still three European summits on the programme this season before the finale in Abu Dhabi in November. The French Grand Prix will be followed by the Rolex Switzerland Grand Prix on Lake Geneva on 20 and 21 September and the DP World Spain Sail Grand Prix in Cádiz, Andalusia, on 4 and 5 October. The Grand Prix in Sassnitz was also part of the European SailGP phase.
Dylan Fletcher, currently in third place in the overall standings, who wants Team Emirates to fly even better this weekend in France than in Sassnitz, said: "We're approaching the end of the championship - there are four events left, including the Grand Final. We just want to maintain our consistency, hopefully sail like we have been and stay out of trouble."
We have all eyes on the final in Abu Dhabi." Dylan Fletcher
Peter Burling's Black Foils and Tom Slingsby's Bonds Flying Roos have three points more than the Brits in the season standings with a total of 61 points in their SailGP accounts. "We're just trying to keep improving," said Burling. "Everyone knows that the key to winning the SailGP is to get to the final and do your best in Abu Dhabi. That's what we're trying to do."
Bonds Flying Roos: the best strong wind tamers?
However, Peter Burling is not the only one who knows that the Australian rivals are regarded as successful strong-wind tamers. Burling said: "Tom has set the bar pretty high in strong winds, so everyone knows he has to put in a good day to get to the top of the leaderboard. That's what we're trying to do - we love this rivalry with the Australians and look forward to continuing it." Click here for the season rankings after eight of twelve events.
From this weekend in France, the whole thing will be even faster with new rudders. In Saint-Tropez, the F50 racing machines will be in action for the first time with new rudders and new elevators after an 18-month test phase. Thinner, longer and more efficient than their predecessors, they are designed to give pilots better control over the foiling catamarans. According to the league, the cavitation that previously set in at around 83 km/h will only occur at 106 km/h.
The innovative SailGP drivers hope that the new rudders will enable "even more daring manoeuvres", but still "less damage". At the same time, it was said that the teams would now "push the boats even harder than ever before". ZDF will show what this can look like during the live stream on both SailGP days: The broadcasts with commentator Kristin Recke and reporter Nils Kaben in Saint-Tropez will start on Friday (12 September) at 1.30 pm and on Saturday (13 September) at 12.30 pm here. If you are in France yourself, switch on Canal+ at the same times.
And who will win in Saint-Tropez?
Who does Russell Coutts see at the front for the upcoming races? "The teams that were in front in Sassnitz could well be in front again," says the champion. That was the Germany SailGP Team in race one. In the end, France won ahead of Australia and the British. They were followed by the Kiwis and the Germans. Can Erik Kosegarten-Heil their wave of success from Sassnitz continue off Saint-Tropez?
