#sailgp 2024-2025

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Season 5 SailGP calendar revealed today!

They’re going to Auckland, Germany (maybe Kiel?), and Brazil (no location yet).

No Canadian locale, but lots in the Middle East.

Nice to see Taranto and Geneva on the Calendar.

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These are the kind of statements from Coutts that make this avid fan feel absolutely feral.

If you don’t have enough BOATS AVAILABLE from the get-go, what the fuck are you doing letting a 12th team into the league???

Their funding model needs a serious overhaul if they are so hard up to take the money from the 12th team but only if they boot out an established team at the start of the season.

And if I was Spain or Canada, I’d be seriously worried.

Canada has great sailors, but let’s face it, it is EXTREMELY difficult to find funding and major sponsors for events and teams in this country. (Unless they are willing to team up with a mining or oil company and that is kinda against the powered by nature theme. A coalition of engineering companies could work though…but what am I doing giving people free fundraising advice?…).

So, even if the fucking VAST MAJORITY of the fans watching these events are Canadian, the league will not hesitate to cut us off at the knees.

I have no doubt that Spain and France will find (and have access) to better funding opportunities. And Russell couldn’t even step foot back in NZ without risking major death if he cut the kiwi 🇳🇿 team.

Overall, this feels rushed and silly. Another hallmark of this sports league.

(This smells of another push from the tech wonder funding the league boo-hooing that he hasn’t made enough money back fast enough.)

Ten to Eleven to Twelve… but who?

Somewhat buried in the lead-up to SailGP New York was a statement from Russell Coutts that Season 5 will end with 12 teams but start with 11:

Elsewhere, we’ve announced Brazil will be one of the two new teams entering the league for Season 5. Both of the new teams coming on board are extremely exciting and I expect them to be very competitive almost from the get go. We are arranging more than a month of pre-season training for both new teams as well as some of the underperforming teams of Season 4 so that should help to get them going. 

However, the big news is that we will only have 11 F50s available at the start of Season 5 and, with 12 teams wanting to start, it means one of the current teams will not be on the start line until at least May 2025 when we should have boat 12.

Although not named here, the other new team is believed to be Italy, as Jimmy Spithill announced his intention to start an Italian team when he left the US team at the end of last year. But who knows, maybe it could be someone else?

The league has therefore notified France, Canada and Spain that the league will likely not continue to fund them, meaning that if they don’t receive funding then at least one of them won’t be starting in Season 5.

Each of those teams is optimistic they’ll receive all of their funding, but we’ll have to wait and see how this plays out with the league confirming participation according to who secures their funding first. 

Of course we’ve also considered what would happen if all three teams secured their funding. Would we allow all of them to compete and pause New Zealand’s participation? I guess we’ll have to face that decision if that situation unfolds.

Spain finding new investors was hinted at at the end of the last Racing on the Edge video, but here they’re still discussed as funding-uncertain, so that’s interesting. New Zealand being discussed separately like this is also interesting— are they also funding-uncertain but less likely to be put on hold because they’re leading the leaderboard? Or have they found some funding, but not enough?

The only previous precedent for this situation would be Season 3, where Japan were first paused (with a system proposed to give them compensation points for missed events) to provide a place for Canada and then eliminated altogether before a new boat was available.

Many fans asked then why one team had to be benched the whole time instead of “not-participating” being an alternating role so that everyone at least got to race once, perhaps at their home event— a question which also arises now. Canada, at least, are “confirmed” (as tenuous as that status may sometimes be) to host a Season 5 event.

All of the “threatened” teams have had excellent home events and inspired loyal fanbases, and SailGP would be the poorer with any of them gone.

[umseb]

"SailGP is coming home—to Sassnitz! 🚨🇩🇪 We are thrilled! In August 2025, the SailGP fleet will arrive in Germany—more specifically, in SASSNITZ, on RÜGEN Island. For us, it’s the perfect location, with epic chalk cliffs and iconic Baltic resort architecture as the backdrop. Get ready for high-speed racing at the first EVER Germany Sail Grand Prix! When? August 16th and 17th, 2025." - september 26, 2024 📷 @.sailgpger / instagram

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Congrats to Martine Grael…

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/sailing/sailgp/sailgp-announce-first-female-driver-as-martine-grael-to-lead-new-brazilian-team/WOQLRJSCMRHLRE3UEPGIGHQTGQ/undefined

… Team Brazil and SailGP for getting with the program.

And Brazil SailGP location also announced.

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SailGP news

Sounds like the Auckland event is gonna be quite a wild ride.

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Re the controversy about Season 5:

In the latest episode of Racing on the Edge, SailGP’s behind-the-scenes show, league chief executive Sir Russell Coutts said that should Canada, France and Spain all find the funding for next season, then New Zealand would be the team potentially on the chopping block if they find themselves still being partly league funded.

Speaking to the Herald ahead of this weekend’s season finale in San Francisco, Black Foils co-chief executive and driver Peter Burling said they had not had any conversations with the league about the possibility of them not being on the starting line in season five.

“There haven’t been any conversations that look negative for us next season,” Burling said.

“We’re really happy with the commercial programme we’ve got building. Obviously, we’re one of the current league-owned teams so we always get dragged back into these conversations, but we’ve got an amazing group of partners, we’ve got a really loyal group of fans which we’re really proud to represent.

“The growth of the team of the last year has been unbelievable so we’re really excited to push that forward and continue to build our programme.”

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Changes coming for Season 5 of SailGP.

Foiling in lighter winds is a laudable goal, but g*d help any crew member ever goes over or through the fairings or trampoline with this setup and at higher speeds.

Would be good to get some real candid thoughts from teams on this development.