Will change get USA out of the cellar?

The U.S. SailGP Team is last in the season standings but have recently added Mike Menninger and Andrew Campbell to their crew, both fresh from the American Magic challenge in the 2024 America’s Cup.

The team has been mum about what role they will play, but rumors are that Menninger may be slotted as wing trimmer with Campbell as strategist, roles currently held by Jeremy Wilmot and Mike Buckley, respectively.

With the next event on August 16-17 in Sassnitz, Germany, the event crew list has Menninger and Campbell as reserve crew but another change has Marcus Lynch, High Performance Director for the USA Olympic Program, as the team’s coach. This role was previously held by Evan Aras.

With very little time to train on the league’s F50s, will these changes help?

“For us, we want to just be getting better every single race and making sure that we’re working well as a team and improving,” said Menninger. “I think for Andrew (Campbell) and I, the new guys on the boat, that is especially pertinent.”

Flight controller Hans Henken added, “We’ve been doing a lot of rotation (in training), a lot of changes. Not one person has been on the boat all day long. We’re going to wake up on Saturday, the roster is going to get filled out, that’s going to be the A team and they’re going to go racing.”

Racing will be at 3.30pm-5:00 pm CEST (9:30am-11:00am EDT). Standing by…

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