SailGP to make Los Angeles debut, return to New York
The SailGP global league will make its Los Angeles debut as well as return to New York during Season 4, which will feature 12 regattas on four continents.
The expanded schedule, announced Wednesday, will feature four regattas in the United States starting with the season opener off Chicago’s Navy Pier June 16-17. It will be followed by SailGP’s first visit to Los Angeles on July 22-23, with the sailing in souped-up, 50-foot foiling catamarans to be held in the steady breezes on the Port of Los Angeles’ Outer Harbor. The Outer Harbor is near Long Beach, which hosted sailing for the 1984 Olympics and will do so again for the 2028 Games.
Season 4 will conclude with regattas in New York on June 22-23, 2024, and the Grand Final in San Francisco on July 13-14, 2024.
There’s still one regatta to go in Season 3, set for San Francisco May 6-7. Two-time defending champion Team Australia, skippered by Tom Slingsby, has all but clinched a spot in the $1 million winner-take-all Grand Final, with New Zealand, France and Britain chasing the other two spots.
The nine teams, which include many Olympic medalists and current and former America’s Cup champions, will have a break of just six weeks before Season 4 starts in Chicago.
“You only need to look at our recent broadcast figures to see how much interest there is in SailGP in the United States,” said Jimmy Spithill, a two-time America’s Cup champion who’s in his second season as skipper and CEO of Team USA. “There are so many sports enthusiasts in America, so it’s really cool to see how many of them are becoming fans.
“Season 4 will have four of the greatest cities, with incredible racetracks for spectators, and we know there will be a huge turnout and support for the U.S. team,” said Spithill, an Australian who lives in San Diego with his American wife and their two sons. “Obviously I’m biased, but I believe these will be the best events of the season and heavily attended.”
The course for the New York regatta will be off Governors Island, which is expected to provide better conditions and spectator access than when it was held off Manhattan in 2019. Racing conditions weren’t ideal then due to the current in the Hudson River and wind affected by skyscrapers.
Other stops include Saint-Tropez, France; Taranto, Italy; Andalucía-Cadiz, Spain; a port in the United Arab Emirates still to be determined; Sydney; Auckland; and Bermuda. SailGP will visit Canada for the first time, with Halifax, Kingston, Montreal and Victoria competing for hosting rights. The successful city will be announced in May.
There will be a break of several months between Seasons 4 and 5 to allow sailors to compete in the Olympics and America’s Cup.
Tech tycoon Larry Ellison and Russell Coutts, a five-time America’s Cup champion from New Zealand, founded SailGP after their Oracle Team USA lost to Emirates Team New Zealand in the 2017 America’s Cup.
___
Follow Bernie Wilson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/berniewilson