{"id":159188,"date":"2025-07-18T16:21:45","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T15:21:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/?p=159188"},"modified":"2025-07-19T10:38:33","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T09:38:33","slug":"sail-gp-portsmouth-set-for-full-on-solent-obstacle-course","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/all-latest-posts\/sail-gp-portsmouth-set-for-full-on-solent-obstacle-course-159188","title":{"rendered":"Sail GP Portsmouth set for full-on Solent ‘obstacle course’"},"content":"The hotly anticipated British leg of the SailGP<\/a> circuit, the Emirates Great Britain Sail Grand Prix in Portsmouth, takes place this weekend from 19-20 July.\r\n\r\nTwelve F50s<\/a> will be racing on a tight racecourse just off Southsea, with an enormous grandstand in the race village expected to welcome 20,000 spectators over the weekend.\r\n\r\nWeather conditions look promising, with 8-16 knots forecast for Saturday 19, and a punchy 16-26 knots possible for Sunday.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_159192\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"\" Strong breezes are forecast for Day 2 of the British SailGP in Portsmouth. Photo: Ricardo Pinto\/SailGP[\/caption]\r\n\r\nSailGP CEO Russell Coutts commented: \u201c10 years ago I wouldn\u2019t have said this [20,000-strong crowd] was likely, but we obviously set the tone in Auckland, where we had a similar size crowd on shore, and we\u2019re absolutely thrilled to have that sort of support here in Portsmouth.\r\n\r\n\u201cI think fans are in for a great event - especially on Sunday, when the breeze is going to be up, they\u2019re probably going to be on that small wing foil configuration. And who knows, they might hit that new speed record.\u201d\r\n

Sail GP obstacle course<\/h2>\r\nFor added jeopardy, the course area \u2013 always intentionally tight at Sail GP events \u2013 is likely to include several immovable obstacles - potentially including Spitbank Fort, one of Portsmouth\u2019s famous sea defences, and shipping lane markers. A substantial exclusion zone will be in place from 2pm each day in the busy eastern Solent.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_159195\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"\" The Auckland SailGP set a new bar for crowd numbers - organisers will be hoping for 20,000 spectators at Portsmouth this weekend.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nGiles Scott, who helms the Canada SailGP team commented: \u201cI think the waters here are going to be an amazing racecourse. There will be some obstacles to dodge\u00a0\u2013 may be a fort, some navy posts. So there is a lot going on, but it\u2019s going to be an amazing venue.\r\n\r\nDylan Fletcher, helmsman of the Emirates Great Britain team, told Yachting World<\/em>: \u201cIt\u2019s an interesting race course - which if it gets the green light could add a curve ball! Not so much the marks, more the proximity of the start line to the shore!\u201d\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_159197\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"\" The huge grandstand under construction in Portsmouth for the Emirates Great Britain Sail Grand Prix. Photo: Yachting World[\/caption]\r\n\r\nTom Slingsby<\/a>, team boss and helmsman of the Australian BONDS Flying Roos<\/a> SailGP team, cautioned that with added spectacle, comes added risk for the teams. He told Yachting World<\/em>: \u201cSome of the Sail GP race tracks have had a few obstacles - Cadiz has a reef. But I\u2019d say this is probably the most obstacles we\u2019ve had, and probably the biggest one with the fort.\r\n\r\n\u201cHonestly, we\u2019re going to have to go away and brush up on our rules when approaching an obstacle and who gains right of way and how. I\u2019m going to go and brush up on that stuff. But other than that I\u2019m pretty confident.\r\n\r\n\u201cSometimes when you\u2019ve got obstacles on the course the drivers just need to have a little level of respect that - I might have right of way here, but if I keep pushing this there\u2019s going to be a nasty crash, and back out of the situation. It\u2019s not nice to back out of a situation because it doesn\u2019t help your race result, but we also need to have a level of understanding that these boats are dangerous and if we push the situation too hard where it might not be your boat, but another boat might have an incident. You\u2019ve got to have enough common sense.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe penalty points work for boat on boat situations, but often we\u2019re coming into a situation and there\u2019s five boats coming in and one boat might have right of way and exercise that right, but in doing that can cause a collision between others.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhether the rules need to adapt more for these sorts of racecourses or this type of racing, we\u2019ve got to keep looking at that because these boots, when they hit, can be catastrophic and very dangerous.\u201d\r\n

Pressure on British SailGP team<\/h2>\r\nThere was much talk in the press conference about the potential home advantage for the British team.\r\n\r\nEmirates Great Britain SailGP team CEO Ben Ainslie commented: \u201cPeople talk about pressure in sport, and it\u2019s definitely an added pressure when you see tens of thousands of people there all expecting the home team to win, that\u2019s frankly a little bit intimidating. But we also say pressure is a privilege and I think Dylan, Hannah and the team will thrive off that.\"\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_159191\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"\" Emirates Great Britain SailGP Team won the KPMG Australia Sail Grand Prix in Sydney, but have struggled to get on the podium in more recent events. Photo: Jason Ludlow\/SailGP[\/caption]\r\n\r\nFor the British squad, however, it\u2019s not just the home crowd that\u2019s piling on the pressure - after a near perfect start to the season, the Emirates Great Britain Sail Grand Prix team has dropped to fourth overall, finishing the previous event in New York in eighth, following a seventh in San Francisco and fourth in Los Angeles.\r\n\r\n\u201cUltimately we had a really good start to the season, but I\u2019m still inexperienced, explained helmsman Dylan Fletcher<\/a>.\r\n\r\n\"I think we saw some cracks appear in San Fran, so we\u2019ve put some things and processes in place so hopefully we won\u2019t see those again.\"\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_159193\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"226\"]\"\" Tom Slingsby, driver of BONDS Flying Roos SailGP Team. Photo: Andrew Baker\/SailGP[\/caption]\r\n\r\nHe explained further, telling Yachting World<\/em>: \u201cIn LA we had a bad first day but a good second day, and we were one point away from the final, so it\u2019s not really a bad event, it\u2019s just the margins are super-tight.\r\n\r\n\u201cI think San Francisco was the one we were a bit surprised about, we went there with high expectations - probably too high expectations. We made some mistakes, and then didn\u2019t quite rectify those mistakes.\r\n\r\n\u201cIn New York we spent a lot of time on debriefing and we were in good spirits, but sailing three-up was really a curve ball that I\u2019d never done before. And part of think the problem was the way that we sail the boat four-up was little bit different to some of the others and that exposed some errors. But in reality there was just two decisions or mistakes that day that cost the difference between in the hunt and not, and Sunday we had a top three day. So it looked really bad on paper, but it\u2019s not quite so bad.\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd we had a really unfortunate incident with the Canadians that cost us a season point, the umpire have said they got the call wrong, but ultimately we have to bear that.\r\n\r\n\u201cBut we\u2019ve spent a lot of time watching videos of the others teams, and they\u2019re not doing anything special, they\u2019re not doing anything we\u2019re not doing. They\u2019re making plenty of mistakes and that\u2019s the nature of SailGP, you\u2019ve just got to keep fighting for every point.\u201d\r\n

More to come?<\/h2>\r\nSo, if each team is still making mistakes - how much potential is there still to come from the F50s?\r\n\r\n\u201cThere\u2019s plenty [of room to improve],\u201d says Fletcher. \u201cYou can see when we\u2019re all in our own space, we\u2019re all sailing the boat quite well, but sailing them at that level all the time is another thing \u2013 especially the start. You see some teams start really well one event and sometimes really bad, so being consistent there will deliver the results.\u201d\r\n\r\nTom Slingsby agreed: \u201cThere\u2019s still a huge amount of potential there. These boots are incredibly difficult to sail, and no one is sailing a perfect race.\r\n\r\n\u201cCompared to when I used to sail my Laser I think I got a lot closer to 100% than I ever have in a SailGP race. The difficulty of the boots, the co-ordination of the team - just everything coming into it. the top teams might not even be at 90%.\u201d","excerpt":{"rendered":"

The hotly anticipated British leg of the SailGP circuit, the Emirates Great Britain Sail Grand Prix in Portsmouth, takes place this weekend from 19-20 July. Twelve F50s will be racing on a tight racecourse just off Southsea, with an enormous grandstand in the race village expected to welcome 20,000 spectators over the weekend. Weather conditions look promising, with 8-16 knots forecast for Saturday 19, and a punchy 16-26 knots possible for Sunday. SailGP CEO Russell Coutts commented: \u201c10 years ago I wouldn\u2019t have said this [20,000-strong crowd] was likely, but we obviously set the tone in Auckland, where we had a similar size crowd on shore, and we\u2019re absolutely thrilled to have that sort of support here in Portsmouth. \u201cI think fans are in for a great event – especially on Sunday, when the breeze is going to be up, they\u2019re probably going to be on that small wing foil configuration. And who knows, they might hit that new speed record.\u201d Sail GP obstacle course For added jeopardy, the course area \u2013 always intentionally tight at Sail GP events \u2013 is likely to include several immovable obstacles – potentially including Spitbank Fort, one of Portsmouth\u2019s famous sea defences, and shipping lane markers. A substantial exclusion zone will be in place from 2pm each day in the busy eastern Solent. Giles Scott, who helms the Canada SailGP team commented: \u201cI think the waters here are going to be an amazing racecourse. There will be some obstacles to dodge\u00a0\u2013 may be a fort, some navy posts. So there is a lot going on, but it\u2019s going to be an amazing venue. Dylan Fletcher, helmsman of the Emirates Great Britain team, told Yachting World: \u201cIt\u2019s an interesting race course – which if it gets the green light could add a curve ball! Not so much the marks, more the proximity of the start line to the shore!\u201d Tom Slingsby, team boss and helmsman of the Australian BONDS Flying Roos SailGP team, cautioned that with added spectacle, comes added risk for the teams. He told Yachting World: \u201cSome of the Sail GP race tracks have had a few obstacles – Cadiz has a reef. But I\u2019d say this is probably the most obstacles we\u2019ve had, and probably the biggest one with the fort. \u201cHonestly, we\u2019re going to have to go away and brush up on our rules when approaching an obstacle and who gains right of way and how. I\u2019m going to go and brush up on that stuff. But other than that I\u2019m pretty confident. \u201cSometimes when you\u2019ve got obstacles on the course the drivers just need to have a little level of respect that – I might have right of way here, but if I keep pushing this there\u2019s going to be a nasty crash, and back out of the situation. It\u2019s not nice to back out of a situation because it doesn\u2019t help your race result, but we also need to have a level of understanding that these boats are dangerous …Continue reading »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1571,"featured_media":159190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1160],"tags":[173,2133,1633],"review_manufacturer":[],"acf":[],"introduction":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159188"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1571"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159188"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":159202,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159188\/revisions\/159202"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159188"},{"taxonomy":"review_manufacturer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review_manufacturer?post=159188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}