The Germany SailGP Team wants to make the league restart in season five a new beginning for itself. After a two-and-a-half month break from racing, during which the league repaired and overhauled the foiling F50 catamarans, the first starting shot since 24 March will be fired on 7 June in the Big Apple. The upcoming showdown in New York will mark the sixth event of the 2024/2025 season after the cancelled premiere in Rio de Janeiro.
This is only the second season for the young German racing team of entrepreneur Thomas Riedel and four-time Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel. Unlike many established teams, the team led by two-time 49er Olympic bronze medallist Erik Kosegarten-Heil, who married his partner Louisa Kosegarten on 11 April, started out in the 2023 SailGP without any America's Cup experience. The road to the top is steep and thorny for the Germany SailGP team.
The Germans were hit hard by an unusually heavy thunderstorm of penalty points in Sydney. At the beginning of February, helmsman Erik Kosegarten-Heil and his crew in Australia picked up twelve season penalties for right of way infringements in training races before the official start of the race - the highest penalty in the league's history. They are still working on the redemption. Added to this was the disappointing result in San Francisco in March.
SailGP: not without our coaches
There, where the Australian sail wing had broken so dramatically and fuelled the subsequent decision to thoroughly overhaul the F50 fleet, the German team had rarely come out of the blocks with good starts between the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. Overall, it was only enough for Black-Red-Gold to finish tenth and penultimate in the SailGP off San Francisco, while the Danes had to watch on after their collision with a course mark.
We are better than the current ranking shows." Lennart Briesenick
For the restart of the fleet in New York, the German team is aiming for a turnaround. They are working hard to achieve this. "We're motivated right down to the tips of our hair," says coach Lennart Briesenick. The Flensburg coach has been an important linchpin in the German team since day one, a creative driving force and a rock in the surf.
During the races, Lennart Briesenick and the second coach Jacopo Plazzi Marzotto - just like their colleagues in other teams - act as important information providers for the crew on land. They act as additional sailors from shore. "When sailing in light winds with four sailors, we are like sailors number 5 and 6. If there are six sailors on board, we are like sailors 7 and 8," explains Briesenick with a smile.
1300 sensors supply the data in the SailGP
The coaches positioned at monitors in the race headquarters are part of the communication circle during the SailGP races and, in contrast to other major regattas, are allowed to provide the crews with important information in real time. Verbal communication remains focussed on the essentials. In the pre-start phase, for example, Briesenick makes a brief announcement about how many seconds there are left to the so-called "back wall", the rear course limit, which must not be crossed, just like all other course limits.
"Optimising communication on board is an ongoing process. After every event, the team analyses communication in great detail. We weigh up every word," says Briesenick, describing the ongoing optimisation processes. Like all teams, the German team strives to maximise the targeted use of the data collected by 1,300 sensors on board the speeding F50 catamarans.
But even in the sea of data, the crews' sailing skills remain crucial. "We have data and images from the outside, but we can't feel the boat. Take an upcoming crossing, for example. In the end, Anna always has the final decision as the strategist. She is the one who says whether the boat will come round the front or has to duck. Because she can feel on the boat whether the boat feels stable and fast or rather sticky and slow," says Lennart Briesenick, describing the decision-making processes, which are based on data on the one hand and sailing snapshots on the other.
The hard road to the top of SailGP
Anna Barth, who grew up in Hamburg and lives in Kiel, is required on board as a strategist and also as a grinder in a small light wind line-up. She is part of the Germany SailGP team, which decided on its own course in the fight for promotion within the given budget when it entered the league in 2023.
"There are two ways up: either you buy the most expensive and experienced key people as a team and develop the other half of the people. Or you build up the team step by step with very good sailors, but without experience from the America's Cup or SailGP. We are taking path two within the framework of our conditions. It requires persistent hard work in all areas, patience and the ability to take things in your stride, but it can be more sustainable," says Team Germany's coach Lennart Briesenick.
The Germany SailGP Team presented by Deutsche Bank is led by helmsman Erik Kosegarten-Heil. The British wing trimmer and 49er Olympic champion Stuart Bithell, whom Heil knows well from his active Olympic 49er days, and the Australian flight controller James Wierzbowski have grown into a unit with the strategist Anna Barth, who grew up in Hamburg, and the grinders Jonathan Knottnerus-Meyer (Kiel), Felix van den Hövel (Munich) and Will Tiller (New Zealand).
SailGP training with switches in Kiel
They utilise every opportunity to improve, even if they cannot draw on the think tanks of the America's Cup or four and five years of SailGP experience like the leading teams from Australia, Great Britain, Spain, New Zealand or Canada. The chronic lack of training opportunities on the F50 catamarans for all teams is a particular problem for teams that have not been active in the SailGP for as long as the Germans.
Team Germany, which is still in twelfth and last place in the league after the penalty point hail in Sydney, is focussing on other ways to improve as it moves up the rankings. For example, they were active together in the M32 series in order to further optimise team cooperation. However, this was not an entirely favourable investment in terms of costs. "But it's important to sail as a team from time to time," says Lennart Briesenick, explaining this training project, which has been completed for the time being.
The team is currently also using four Switches moored in Kiel for training purposes. The foiling little high performers can reach speeds of up to 30 knots. The Germany SailGP team has equipped them with SailGP software that they developed themselves. "With the Switches, we can sail a kind of mini SailGPs. Including course limits and more. It's a completely new game that didn't exist in the Olympics. The Spaniards did something similar in their first seasons with moths but without software. Of course, everything is a bit slower in Switsches than in SailGP, but the principles are very similar."
The challenges for the Germany SailGP Team
Lennart Briesenick is well aware of the many challenges facing the Germany SailGP team: "The expectations are already different in the second season than when we started. And it's not a carnival team we're competing against here. Our opponents are all smart and experienced sailors who have largely spent more time with these boats and some also have a lot of America's Cup background." This is also shown by the current crew lists for New York here.
Lennart Briesenick is looking ahead to the New York summit on 7 and 8 June and the rest of the season, including the German SailGP premiere on 16 and 17 August in Sassnitz, with a clear view: "I still believe that San Francisco was not our level. That was an unfortunate event that we obviously have to take very seriously. We are currently still in the sixth to twelfth place range. We have to fight the downward spiral."
At the same time, Lennart Briesenick sees the growing potential in the team: "If everything works out on a weekend and perhaps others allow themselves a misstep, then we have the potential to reach a final. I'm confident that we can get there this season. That would be a real bonus."
Hollywood star inspires SailGP Team Italy
While the German team is concentrating as much as possible on the sport on the New York course, other racing teams have made glamour headlines. The Red Bull Italy SailGP team, for example, was taken over by a consortium of investors that includes Hollywood actress Anne Hathaway, known from the hit film "The Devil Wears Prada". The CEO and co-owner of the Italian team remains Jimmy Spithill, one of the most successful sailors in the world. The Australian announced the end of his active America's Cup career last year.
Why the SailGP in Rio was cancelled, how the fleet is doing now and what will happen in season five:
