Empowering everyone to improve

The U.S. SailGP Team has recently added Mike Menninger and Andrew Campbell to their crew, both fresh from the American Magic challenge in the 2024 America’s Cup. While technical issues on Day Two in Portsmouth kept the team from two of the three races, Campbell got onboard for the final race as Strategist.

This is a big change, as this role was held by Mike Buckley, team CEO and co-owner.

“I think that our team is on the low end of experience when it comes to the F50s, and the positions that the guys are sailing them,” Campbell explained. “Everybody in this team has had experience over these last few seasons but, relative to some of the other squads, we’re still a little bit on the green side.

“So that’s been my mentality here and what Mike has asked me to do has been to empower every single person in this team to do their job better; to offer what I can, to say, I’ve been in your spot before. This is how I’ve approached it. ‘How can I help you do it better today?’”

Campbell rejoined the U.S. SailGP Team after spending part of Seasons Two and Three with the team
“It’s been really fun to jump in and touch every single person on board in a way that says, ‘I’m here to help you and if I can take some burden off of you and put it on my shoulders in the back of the boat, that’s fantastic’.

“If just being here for you to say, ‘Hey, I’m struggling with this, what do you think?’ Just having that conversation with somebody who’s been down the road before, that’s the kind of thing that I think can help a team take a deep breath in and then grow rather than be frustrated.”

The relationship between Campbell and Buckley goes back a long way. The two have known each other for 20 years, going back to their high school days and sailing against one another.

“I know what a successful team looks like and I know this team has the potential to be that. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here, if I’m totally frank,” Campbell said. “I wouldn’t have given Mike and the team the time of day if I thought that this team didn’t have the potential to do that.

“There is no magic, silver bullet here. But if I can come in and make some connections, if I can get a couple of people firing in a way that maybe they weren’t firing before, or they’d been frustrated because of a really simple miscommunication or whatever, then maybe I can breathe some fresh life into some of those scenarios.

“I could already see that kind of stuff happening when I walked in the door,” he continued. “Michael Menninger was a teammate of mine at American Magic; I have a ton of confidence in him. He’s a really smart guy, a really observant person that approaches things really analytically and very patiently. He doesn’t open his mouth all that often but, when he does, you better pay attention to what he’s saying because he’s got a lot of really good stuff in his head.

“So I’m excited about the potential for gains here in that way. But, it’s hard to walk up to that first event and still get a similar result. So it’s going to take some time, and I know that we have the potential to do it. I know we’ve got some really great sailors here, and it’s a really fun squad to be around. I’m looking forward to getting back into it in a couple weeks.”

SailGP information – Sassnitz event – YouTube – Crew list

Season 5 Leaderboard (after 7 events)
1. New Zealand – Peter Burling, 54 points
2. Australia – Tom Slingsby, 52 points
3. Spain – Diego Botin, 51 points
4. Great Britain – Dylan Fletcher, 50 points
5. Canada – Giles Scott, 41 points
6. France – Quintin Delapierre, 37 points*
7. Switzerland – Sebastien Schneiter, 28 points
8. Italy – Ruggero Tita, 19 points
9. Denmark – Nicolai Sehested, 18 points**
10. Brazil – Martine Grael, 11 points**
11. Germany – Erik Heil, 0 points**
12. United States – Taylor Canfield, 0 points**
* France was awarded points for the first two events as their F50 was not available
**Teams receive season penalty points for incidents during practice or racing

Season 5 Schedule – 14 events *
2024
November 23-24 – Dubai, UAE

2025
January 18-19 – Auckland, New Zealand
February 8-9 – Sydney, Australia
March 15-16 – Los Angeles, USA
March 22-23 – San Francisco, USA
May 3-4 – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
June 7-8 – New York City, USA
July 19-20 – Portsmouth, Great Britain
August 16-17 – Sassnitz, Germany
September 6-7 – Taranto, Italy
September 12-13 – Saint-Tropez, France
September 20-21 – Geneva, Switzerland
October 4-5 – Andalucía – Cádiz, Spain
November 7-8 – Middle East
November 29-30 – Grand Final – Abu Dhabi, UAE
* The season began with 14 events but Tranto was replaced with Saint-Tropez, while Rio and Middle East were cancelled.

Format for Season 5:
• Teams compete in identical F50 catamarans.
• Each event runs across two days.
• Five qualifying fleet races of approximately 15 minutes may be scheduled for each regatta.
• The top three teams from qualifying advance to a final race to be crowned event champion and earn the largest share of the prize purse (amount not confirmed; Season 4 had $400,000.00 USD prize purse with winning team earning $200k at each event).
• The season ends with the Grand Final, which includes the Championship Final Race for the top three teams in the season standing with the winner claiming a monetary award (amount not confirmed; Season 4 had $2 million USD prize).
• The top team on points ahead of the three-boat Championship Final will get a monetary award (amount not confirmed; Season 4 had a $350,000.00 prize).
• The league still owns the New Zealand and Spain teams and are looking at how they can bring new investment into them.

For competition documents, click here.

Established in 2018, SailGP seeks to be an annual, global sports league featuring fan-centric inshore racing among national teams in some of the iconic harbors around the globe.

Source: US SailGP