All beginnings are difficult. Erik Heil and the Germany SailGP Team knew this even before their premiere in Chicago. The German team, newly founded by entrepreneur Thomas Riedel and four-time Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel, met the stars of sailing this weekend. The F50 racing catamarans competed in five races in the sailing arena against the attractive backdrop of Chicago's Navy Pier.
Promising start on Lake Michigan
The short course showed very different faces on the two race days: on day one there were good foiling conditions of around 14 to 16 knots, while on day two very light summer winds made work on board difficult, especially for the less experienced teams, with only a few knots of wind. This was also the case for the German team.
However, with two-time Olympic bronze medallist Erik Heil at the helm, the German-Brazilian 49er FX double Olympic champion Kahena Kunze as strategist, 49er Olympic champion Stuart Bithell as wing trimmer, the Australian James Wierzbowski as flight controller and the grinders Joe Sullivan and Dan Morris, an altogether promising start to the concert of sailing superpowers was achieved.
Finishing ahead of greats like Sir Ben Ainslie and Jimmy Spithill
On the first day in particular, the Germany SailGP team impressed with a focussed performance. With deliberately conservative starts and a reduced number of manoeuvres, the crew on the German F50 catamaran sailed to 8th, 8th and 7th place in the field of the SailGP fleet, which had grown to ten nations, with helmsman Erik Heil and his teammates outperforming renowned teams such as Sir Ben Ainslie's British team and Jimmy Spithill's US team.
Classic mistakes cost the new team a potentially better position on the start. Crossing a course boundary or falling off the foils caused the sextet on the visually striking German catamaran to fall back from strong positions. Erik Heil and the Germany SailGP Team had advanced to fourth place in one race. It was not only the fans and TV commentators who paid tribute to the team flying the German flag. SailGP founder and CEO Sir Russell Coutts also said: "How good the Germans were!"
We are very pleased and happy that we were able to get on board in this way" (Erik Heil)
"We were particularly pleased after day one. Our experienced data fox James was amazed. He has never seen such good data from a new team. This is a good confirmation of our work. We are very pleased and happy that we were able to get on board like this," said Erik Heil in Chicago. On board the futuristic foilers, data is collected from hundreds of measuring points. The data collected by all teams is also accessible to all others and can therefore be compared. "After processing the data, we know exactly where we did well and at which points we need to steeply increase our learning curve," explained Erik Heil.
In the light wind poker on day two, the 49er vice world champion and his team clearly paid tribute to their lack of experience. With only ten days of preparation time on the water and in the SailGP simulator in Belfast, Team Germany still lacked the necessary skills to handle the XL sails designed for light winds. As a result, the German team was simply locked out at the start of the fifth and final fleet race. "We tried a more aggressive start, thinking that the others wouldn't be able to get to the top downwind. But they did. That was tough."
The light wind day was a real challenge for us" (Erik Heil)
After the botched start, the Germany SailGP Team started the race with a considerable deficit, but did not even reach the finish line in last place in this race. Team Emirates GBR, led by four-time Olympic champion Sir Ben Ainslie, did not execute a penalty quickly enough, received an additional penalty and had to finish behind the Germans, who came in ninth. "The light wind day was a real challenge for us. We've never sailed with the big wing before," admitted Erik Heil frankly.
Never last, but tenth in the end
The German team started its first SailGP regatta with a lot of respect and has now earned it in the World League. The tenth and last place at the end of the premiere did not quite reflect the already good performances. In the five races, Erik Heil from the Norddeutscher Regatta Verein and his team never crossed the finish line in last place. On the contrary: the team was able to leave experienced teams such as Jimmy Spithill's Americans or the British, the Swiss and the French behind in every race.
In the end, however, the SailGP heavyweights dominated off Chicago. With America's Cup winners Peter Burling and Blair Tuke, the Kiwis won the first test of strength at the start of the fourth SailGP season. They performed confidently in the triple final and gave the three-time SailGP season winners from Australia no chance despite a few attacks. SailGP dominator Tom Slingsby and Team Australia had to come to terms with second place at the start of the new season just a few weeks after the successful final of season three, ahead of the refreshing Team Canada with helmsman Phil Robertson.
