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New York Times
6 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
How military-grade GPS systems help put SailGP at the forefront of sports officiating
Within 110 seconds of the start of the race, the umpire has already ruined two teams' races. One boat (Brazil) jumped the start and another (Australia) were deemed to be the cause of a near-miss collision, forcing Canada to take evasive action. 'Ohhhh! Craig Mitchell dealing out a tough card for the Brazilians!' commentator Todd Harris exclaimed, while Canadian team member Giles Scott says during the race: 'Craig, that was a black flag incident. We almost cut a boat in half there.' Advertisement 'I am still baffled by the decision — that cost us the final,' Australia's Tom Slingsby will say afterwards. Pretty straightforward, then. Mitchell is the leader of SailGP's version of soccer's VAR, the sport's chief umpire, and in many ways, it's a thankless task; he'll never please everybody. In another way, he and his team of officials could probably teach other sports a thing or two about how to utilize technology and transparency. The Athletic was given behind-the-scenes access at SailGP broadcast headquarters in London to find out how military-grade GPS systems help keep this high-speed water sport flowing. The use of technology to officiate sports remains a turbulent process. Soccer is very much still in the infancy phase (we hope) of using video replays to improve the sport and make it fairer. Give it a few more years, eh? The electronic line calling (ELC) system revolutionized the accuracy of line calls in tennis, but it's not a completely flawless system just yet. Over the years, cricket has certainly had its issues with the Decision Review System (DRS), which allows players to challenge on-field decisions. Sailing, or specifically SailGP, the big money, big stakes, 12-team championship which launched in 2019 and can count Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe and Hollywood's Ryan Reynolds among its investors, has been using technology since its inception — SailGP's founders, the American billionaire Larry Ellison and sailing great Russell Coutts, wanted to transform a sport widely perceived, in the UK at least, as being elitist. Generally in sailing, umpires attempt to follow the action on the water, positioned in a powerboat behind the race, hanging on for dear life at 80-odd kilometres an hour (50 mph) and holding up little flags to indicate penalties. But Mitchell is based in the altogether more serene surroundings of Ealing, west London, in the same studio that brings SailGP to our TV screens. Advertisement It's his and his team's job to spot infringements during races and dish out penalties. The chief umpire's role is a prominent one that involves communicating decisions live on TV and often fronting up afterwards to explain them. For soccer fans of a certain age, he's SailGP's Pierluigi Collina or, given Mitchell is more of a rugby union fan, Nigel Owens. 'I'm the face of the organization,' he says. 'Or the dart board.' Search Mitchell's name online and you'll see entire YouTube videos dedicated to analyzing his decisions. 'I see some of it, but I don't chase it,' Mitchell says. 'If we've made errors, we confess. We talk to teams and explain why we got it wrong. We want feedback on how the guys see it; are we missing something? Are we on the same page as them?' The technology Mitchell and his team predominantly lean on is called UmpApp, which in layman's terms shows the boats or, to be more precise, the F50 carbon-fiber catamarans, racing on their screens via what can only be described as 1980s video game-style graphics; simple, 2D figures zooming around a plain blue background. The GPS positions of the F50s are accurate to within 2.5 centimeters and have the same trackers that are used in missiles. By stripping everything back bar the tiny little boat figures, the umpires can concentrate fully on the direction of travel and how far the F50s are from their competitors. All 12 teams race head-to-head during a Grand Prix weekend, of which there are 12 this season, in identical F50s, helping keep costs down and races close. When the F50s are foiling above the water, they are capable of speeds over 60mph (100 km/h) — so for safety reasons, the sailors (or athletes as SailGP likes to call them) are permanently tethered to a retaining line on the F50s to prevent them from falling overboard. Many penalties are handed out for not giving way to another boat or not giving enough room for them to manoeuvre. Unlike in soccer, cricket, tennis, etc, SailGP doesn't stop to allow for an informed refereeing judgement. Decisions must be made in real time. 'We can't stop the race,' Mitchell says. 'I like to make a decision within seven to 10 seconds of an incident, which is a self-imposed deadline. That means you've got to be on the front foot when it comes to both making decisions and anticipating incidents. The biggest part of umpiring is anticipation and the positioning. Advertisement 'Being here (in Ealing) helps give us consistency; we know the setup, we're not shipping things around the world. You miss being in the same conditions as them and experiencing how windy and wavy it is, and how nervous they're getting. 'In terms of making decisions, we're better here because you've got all the data at your fingertips. The hardest part on the water is being in the right place to make that decision. Here, we're everywhere all at once.' Mitchell, in a notion many soccer players will find alien, is a referee/umpire who has a sense of humour and doesn't take himself too seriously. It feels like a pretty important characteristic for someone who, as he says, is the dartboard of SailGP. 'We had a big call recently with the British team. We felt they hadn't kept clear. I think Ben's (Sir Ben Ainslie, Britain's most successful Olympic sailor and the owner of the British team) response was 'lock him in the tower'. 'We need to be transparent. If we don't explain the thinking — and then get feedback — we don't improve. 'If someone disagrees fundamentally with a call but we stand by it, we just say, 'We'd do the same again', so then that team knows how to respond the next time.' Mitchell is fully aware of VAR and its controversies. He believes the lack of communication in stadiums, with 60,000 people not having a clue what is going on while a decision is deliberated over for several minutes, isn't ideal. 'I think baseball has started doing announcements in the stadium, cricket and rugby do, you can get the earpiece at the rugby game to listen to referee comms. 'I'll press a button to let the broadcasters know I'm about to speak, although not all the decisions will be broadcast, depending on how important they are to the race, but the teams will all be told. 'We also have contact with the teams before a race with a pre-race briefing, then an online debrief at the start of the next event.' Advertisement During a two-day Grand Prix — the SailGP season runs from November to November — there are seven fleet races (heats), with the three highest-scoring teams progressing to a winner-takes-all final. Incidents are clipped up and posted online, while Mitchell also gives regular interviews, sometimes detailing the nuances of every decision made. There's no hiding place. If competitors are heard over the race audio criticizing Mitchell, even swearing, it could be clipped up and posted on social media. 'I'd love to go and see the VAR setup,' he adds. 'It would be interesting to see the processes, the training you do, and how you practice. 'Once a month, we get the (UmpApp) tools, which is absolutely the key to getting the best from it. We simulate by running old races. It's not quite the same, as you don't have the adrenaline or pressure, but it gets the communication in sync. If we do drop the ball, it's been a communication error, so you need to be regimented in knowing what you're concentrating on.' That refers to Mitchell's six-strong team each being allocated a certain portion of the race. For example, of the 12 F50s, one referee will zoom in on two or three catamarans competing with each other on the water, while someone else will look at another couple of boats, etc. Another difference with soccer is that sailors and racers become officials. In fact, Mitchell thinks it's a vital pre-requisite. 'It's my view that if you've done high-level sailing, you'll make a good official,' he adds. 'You don't need to be Lionel Messi, of that caliber, but you need people who know how to kick a ball, take a penalty, elude the offside trap and know how the game works, because that gives you anticipation of what's going to happen… and knowledge of why things are happening.' Watching Mitchell and his team officiate during Sunday's races in Portsmouth — the Grand Prix was won by New Zealand — shows how calm communication is central to making the whole thing work, informing each other who is looking at what part of the race, and also using live television coverage and the best replay angles to help inform decisions. For example, the windier and more dangerous the water is, the more allowance may be given for certain actions. 'One of the coaches suggested we get a leaf blower in here to show the conditions out on the water,' Mitchell jokes. The two biggest calls both come in race six, firstly with Brazil sent to the back after fractionally jumping the start. Launching out of the timed start and reaching Mark 1 first is a huge advantage before teams head downwind for two laps of the course. 'It's a really big penalty,' Mitchell admits. 'Some guys were late starters, so we had to push them behind everyone, which is really harsh.' Advertisement Then a four-boat incident involving Australia, Great Britain, Denmark and Canada sees Australia heavily punished. 'It was a tricky situation, four boats all converging; you work out who's got to give room to who,' Mitchell later says. 'We went to the end of the line, which was Australia. My quick review now, after the race, is it was between Australia and Great Britain.' Mitchell will spend the next couple of hours going over those decisions and assessing where he and his team could have done better. Still, he judges their accuracy to be at around 98 percent for a recent race at Plymouth. 'We got two wrong out of 85 decisions made over that weekend,' he says. 'The accuracy is pretty good, but we should be that high. There's nothing we don't have at our disposal. 'Back in the day when we were on the water, there were some decisions we just wouldn't have been able to make because we didn't see them properly. Now we can see everything, so there aren't many excuses for not getting it right.'
Yahoo
23-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Flying Canadians hold slender SailGP lead over Aussies
Canada have taken top spot but are being stalked by Australia after day one of the fifth round of the SailGP season. Canadian skipper Giles Scott steered his team to a narrow win over France in Saturday's fourth race on breezy San Francisco Bay. Fresh off last week's win in Los Angeles, Canada overcame a slow start in the opening race, where they finished fifth, to take the win in two of the next three races and clinch 35 points atop the weekend's standings. The three-times champion Australians trail Canada by three points after 2-3-3-4 race results. "Fifth is not where we want to finish in every race but it was a solid start as well. We had a really good day today," said Scott. .@SailGPFRA understood the assignment 🧑🎨#SailGP — SailGP (@SailGP) March 22, 2025 "The first start was particularly a tricky one with the whole fleet at the top of the box. "We didn't change too much in terms of our approach, just working that time and trying to do the best with the gaps that were given." In third place after day one are Spain, who won the third race, on 29 points. France, winners in the day's opening race, saw their hopes dashed when Quentin Delapierre's crew, after a blistering start in the fourth race, made a costly mistake just metres from victory, ultimately finishing fourth with 23 points. "It was a good finish, quite unfortunate in the last one. I think we started pretty well, except the two middle races," Delapierre said of France's 1-10-8-2 results. "We did a few mistakes and were a bit far overall but nothing done for tomorrow." New Zealand's boat, which won the season-opening leg in Dubai, will head into the second day in fifth place ahead of championship leaders Britain in sixth. The United States had a challenging day, finishing last in the first two races and ninth in the next two, enduring a couple of incidents as they flew off the foils to splash down, on top of outside boundaries and false start penalties. The Danish team were still unable to compete after their catamaran collided with a race marker in the first race in Los Angeles, causing damage. Britain leads the SailGP championship ahead of Australia and New Zealand.
Reuters
23-03-2025
- Sport
- Reuters
Clinical Canada lead the way on day one of SailGP in San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO, March 22 (Reuters) - Canada put in a solid performance to take the lead on day one of the fifth round of the SailGP season as skipper Giles Scott steered his team to a narrow win over France in Saturday's fourth race on breezy San Francisco Bay. Fresh off last week's win in Los Angeles, Canada overcame a slow start in the opening race, where they finished fifth, to take the win in two of the next three races and clinch 35 points atop the weekend's standings. "Fifth is not where we want to finish in every race but it was a solid start as well. We had a really good day today," said Scott. "The first start was particularly a tricky one with the whole fleet at the top of the box. We didn't change too much in terms of our approach, just working that time and trying to do the best with the gaps that were given." The three-times champion Australians trailed Canada by three points after 2-3-3-4 race results, while Spain, who won the third race, finished third on 29 points. France, winners in the day's opening race, saw their hopes dashed when Quentin Delapierre's crew, after a blistering start in the fourth race, made a costly mistake just metres from victory, ultimately finishing fourth with 23 points. "It was a good finish, quite unfortunate in the last one. I think we started pretty well, except the two middle races," Delapierre said of France's 1-10-8-2 results. "We did a few mistakes and were a bit far overall but nothing done for tomorrow." New Zealand's boat, which won the season-opening leg in Dubai, will head into the second day in fifth place ahead of championship leaders Britain in sixth. The United States had a challenging day, finishing last in the first two races and ninth in the next two, enduring a couple of incidents as they flew off the foils to splash down, on top of outside boundaries and false start penalties. The Danish team were still unable to compete after their catamaran collided with a race marker in the first race in Los Angeles, causing damage that ruled them out of last week's race.
New York Times
17-03-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Canada wins Los Angeles Sail Grand Prix as favored rivals falter
LOS ANGELES — 'Yes we CAN!' And yes they did. The Canadians' victory at the Los Angeles Sail Grand Prix was good news not only for Giles Scott's quietly efficient team, but for all the underdogs in the 12-boat fleet. Heading into the three-boat final, a winner-takes-all race lasting barely eight minutes, most experts would have picked New Zealand or Australia to take the title in L.A. Advertisement And yet that would be unfair to Canada, which nearly won on Australia's Sydney Harbour a few weeks earlier. On that occasion, Scott's team gave away the lead through a slight tactical misjudgment, opening the door for Great Britain to seize the moment and grab the win. This time the Canadians left it to their more experienced rivals to make uncharacteristic errors. Australia's Tom Slingsby — the most experienced F50 driver on the tour — has been nailing his starts, hitting the line at pace and scoring top of the stats at the previous two events in Auckland and Sydney. But on Sunday, the Aussies' starting prowess evaporated in the L.A. sunshine, particularly in the final, when the 'Flying Roos' fell off the hydrofoils and massively mistimed their run into the start line. New Zealand narrowly led Canada out of the start, both F50s foiling at speed towards Mark One. Australia was left far behind, dead in the water, struggling to summon the pace to hop onto the hydrofoils. While Saturday's four fleet races had been a full-on, high-speed blast around the racetrack, Sunday's much softer breeze made it extremely challenging for the F50s to get up on to the hydrofoils. And even when they did manage to get foiling, every maneuver was fraught with risk, far too easy to fall off the foils as your rivals flew by. Winners are grinners 😊#LosAngelesSGP #SailGP — SailGP (@SailGP) March 17, 2025 With the wind in such short supply, the race committee ordered all teams to leave two of their crew on the dock. Reducing personnel from six to four takes weight out of the boat and increases the likelihood of getting the F50 foiling in marginal conditions. However, reducing the crews also forced the four remaining team members to take on a much greater workload. While there is usually a dedicated flight controller managing the smooth passage above the water's surface, on Sunday the driver had to manage the flying as well as the driving. Small wonder it's so hard to keep these delicate craft in the air on a fickle day of soft wind. Advertisement New Zealand held a lead over Canada on the first downwind leg, until it rode up a little too high and its foil lost grip with the water, allowing Canada to rally. Finishing second to the Canadians after some costly errors, Peter Burling said: 'We had one big vent [ventilation and loss of control on the hydrofoil] which cost us about 100 meters on the upwind leg, which is a real shame. If I could do it all again, there's a few things I'd do slightly differently, but really happy nonetheless.' While Australia, winner of the first three seasons of SailGP, made a big mistake on the start line, and New Zealand, the dominant performer across Season 4, made mistakes on the race course, Canada kept its errors to a minimum. The Canadians not only achieved the highest speed of the day at 51.07 kmph, but also the best flight time in the final, successfully keeping above the water for 99 percent of the eight-minute race. Flying high on Super Sunday 🤩 Your @emirates fly-time for day two of the #LosAngelesSGP went the way of @sailgpcan 🇨🇦 — SailGP (@SailGP) March 17, 2025 Scott should feel proud of the flight time statistic. A double Olympic gold medalist in the slow singlehanded dinghy called the Finn, the British driver of the Canadian team knows he's still playing catchup on rival drivers like Slingsby and Burling, who have clocked up more 'air miles' on these flying F50s than anyone. 'Having to run the flight control on a day like today, it's something that I'm still getting my head around,' said Scott. 'It's no surprise that the drivers who have been in the league the longest are the most comfortable flying the boat on a marginal foiling day. The biggest priority on a day like today is staying fast and staying on the foil.' SailGP CEO Russell Coutts has said it is important for the underdogs to show they can compete, and he emphasized that on Sunday. Advertisement 'The Canadians have been improving all season,' he said. 'They came close in Australia and they finally got the victory here. Fantastic result, thoroughly deserved it, beating two high-quality teams in Australia and New Zealand. So well done, Canada.' Despite Sunday's result, Britain still tops the overall championship standings after four of 13 events in Season 5. The Brits' lead, however, is down to just two points ahead of second-place Australia, with New Zealand rising to third in the rankings. Canada improved to fifth overall, just a point behind the Season 4 champions from Spain, who had a lackluster weekend. Scott sounds quietly confident that the best is yet to come from Canada. 'We're on a trajectory, we're learning, we're getting better every day.' (Photo courtesy of Jed Jacobsohn for SailGP.
Reuters
17-03-2025
- Sport
- Reuters
Canada move past New Zealand and Australia to win Los Angeles SailGP
LOS ANGELES, March 16 (Reuters) - Canada won the fourth round of the SailGP season on Sunday, triumphing over New Zealand and Australia in a hard-fought, light-wind finals race in Los Angeles. The win is the first for skipper Giles Scott since taking the helm of the Canadian boat at the start of the season and was redemption after narrowly missing out on first place in Sydney last month. "It was an amazing performance from the team this weekend - and throughout the season. We had a good one in Sydney and to come here and win is fantastic for the team, I'm so proud of everyone," said Scott. Dylan Fletcher's Britain started the day with a strong performance, winning race five, but finished sixth in race six before bouncing back to win race seven. Although Britain were seemingly set for the final, Tom Slingsby's Australia blocked their path as they won race six and made a late surge up the rankings in race seven, beating the British into the three-boat final by just a single point. "I thought we had a couple of good starts and obviously we got the second one completely wrong in race two, but I'm really proud of my team," Fletcher said. A fiercely contested shootout in the final saw day one leaders New Zealand take the advantage as Canada fell behind and Australia struggled to maintain their foils in the early stages. However, despite lighter winds and a reduced crew of four, Canada's precise boat handling maintained a dominant performance, capitalising on mishaps on both the New Zealand and Australian boats in the latter stages. Britain remain on top of the season standings with Australia and New Zealand following. Defending champions Spain are fourth, while Canada move up to fifth in the championship. The SailGP series continues with its fifth stop in San Francisco on March 22 and 23.
