Dear readers,
The Formula 1 of sailing was in Germany for the first time and I think it was great! The SailGP has so far been held in major cities and celebrated its German debut in Sassnitz on the island of Rügen. The races are held on F50 catamarans with foils. The extremely high speeds of the boats combined with short race courses directly in front of spectator stands provide the basic ingredients for an extreme spectacle and the success of the format. Having only seen highlights and spectacular breaks of the Sailing Grand Prix so far, this time I watched the races in full length. Having grown up on the Strelasund, so very close to the venue, I was also somewhat driven by local patriotism.
However, the SailGP has nothing to do with sailing as cruising sailors know it. Here, for example, the duration of the flight phase is calculated as a percentage after each race. That's right: flight phase. As soon as the 50-foot catamarans fall off their foils and the hulls touch the surface of the water, they will at best only slow down and at worst (if a hull enters the water too abruptly) cause destructive capsizes. This is because the speeds are absurdly high, sometimes exceeding 100 kilometres per hour. Yes, they are measured in kilometres here. Which is actually only logical, because the comparison with Formula 1 simply fits.
Off Sassnitz, everything was just right: the wind was blowing strongly offshore, meaning few waves and plenty of speed directly in front of the spectator stands on the pier. The television images are prepared (similar to the America's Cup) with virtual laylines and all kinds of race data for each of the twelve teams, so that even those unfamiliar with the regatta and even non-sailors get their money's worth.
And then in the first race, the German team, which is still relatively new to the sport and was not exactly the favourite, even won. The spectator stands were filled with 13,000 onlookers. Wow!
To translate the speed into cruising categories: An F50 catamaran would take you from Sassnitz to Rønne on Bornholm in an hour. Even for experienced regatta sailors, these dimensions are enormous. But you don't watch Formula 1 and then race to the supermarket at 300 kilometres an hour. It's about the incredible performance of the teams, the sporting spirit and also the tragedy when people or equipment fail and a crash occurs. And all this in Western Pomerania, in a harbour that the rest of the world has never heard of. I think that's great! And even better: The Sailing Grand Prix will be held off Rügen again next year and the howling of the foils becomes the new Sassnitz sound again (described here by our colleague Tatjana Pokorny): SailGP: When the foilers roar across the Baltic Sea - new Sassnitz sound | YACHT). And Sassnitz will continue to be mentioned on the organiser's website or when scrolling through the feed in the same breath as the world's major cities.
Michael Rinck
YACHT editor
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