Slingsby to lead Australia SailGP Team

Spearheaded by Larry Ellison and Coutts, SailGP will kick off its inaugural season in February 2019 when Sydney Harbour is transformed into a high-speed freeway for the fastest sail-powered crafts ever to race on its waters and an Aussie team boasting Olympic and America’s Cup “rockstars” along with a famous surf ironman.

Former World Sailor of the Year and London Olympic champion Tom Slingsby will skipper Team Australia in the five-event SailGP series which boasts a winner-take-all match-race finale with a prize purse of US$1 million.

“There’s a bit of pressure then but it could be a big advantage having Sydney as the first event,’’ laughed Slingsby, who has won two America’s Cup for US computer billionaire Larry Ellisons’s Oracle Racing team.

“To be able to sail for Australia is a dream come true,’’ said the eight-time world champion who has hand-picked Olympic swimmer and multiple world ironman surf star Hurst, young Olympic sailing star Jason Waterhouse and his America’s Cup teammates at Oracle Sam Newton and Kyle Langford to race.

The spectacular F1 style racing is an attempt to sell sailing to the masses and will be broadcast on Fox Sports and potentially a free-to-air channel. Each two-day Grand Prix will begin with five fleet races and then culminate in a final match race between the two leaders.

The final event in Marseille will feature a winner-takes-all, $1 million championship match race between the season’s top two teams to conclude three days of racing.

Source: www.news.com.au

ABOUT SAILGP:
Established in 2018 and headquartered in London and San Francisco, SailGP seeks to be an annual, global sports league featuring fan-centric, inshore racing in some of the iconic harbors around the globe and culminates with a $1 million winner-takes-all match race. Rival national teams from Australia, China, France, Great Britain, Japan and the United States battle it out in identical wing-powered, foiling F50 catamarans, engineered to exceed 50 knots. Details: https://sailgp.com/

2019 Schedule
Sydney, Australia (February 15-16)
San Francisco, USA (May 4-5)
New York, USA (June 21-22)
Cowes, UK (August 10-11)
Marseille, France (September 20-22).