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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.'
New York Times
21-07-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Chasing catamarans at 40mph (and feeling queasy) at SailGP's Portsmouth Grand Prix
It was impossible to miss the dejected French team sitting on a wall — still in their wetsuits and life jackets — just before boarding a rigid inflatable boat (RIB) ahead of the third and fourth races of Saturday's Portsmouth SailGP Grand Prix. The France SailGP team, whose investors include Real Madrid striker Kylian Mbappe and had secured back-to-back podiums in the previous two grands prix in San Francisco and New York, did not even make it to the starting line due to damage to their 24-metre wing sail. Advertisement SailGP, a close-to-shore sailing championship, is a new sport in its fifth season, and with that comes teething problems. There are no spare catamarans, so there have been several occasions this season in which a team has been unable to compete because of various issues — France had to sit out the first two events of the season in Dubai and Auckland while their new F50 racing boat was still being built. But at the start of the day, who could have anticipated The Athletic would have a more successful afternoon on the English Channel than the French in chase of the 11 other teams which had made it to the start line? After completing a safety briefing, the French team (and dry land) were soon in the rearview mirror, with the RIB leaving Camber Quay for the Solent, a narrow straight between mainland Britain and the Isle of Wight. It is a stretch of water with history, as this was where Queen Victoria would often watch yachting races and regattas. The Portsmouth Grand Prix is the seventh of 12 events on this season's calendar, which will culminate in November in Abu Dhabi, and is the start of the European leg of the championship. Though F50s can reach speeds of over 50 knots (57.5mph; 92.6 kilometres an hour), our journey began at a relatively low speed; ferries taking passengers to the island just off the south coast needed to be avoided, as did dozens of privately owned boats that had lined the edge of the course. But then we entered the exclusion zone, a mass of water encompassing the course, and even in light wind conditions, the next 20 minutes were not for the faint of heart. The third race of the day — a grand prix that consists of two days of racing of multiple heats before a winner-takes-all showdown on a Sunday between the three top-ranked teams — was won by New Zealand and was already under way by the time The Athletic made it into the exclusion zone. Immediately, it was clear how quickly the foiling catamarans were travelling once they were above the water. Advertisement A whistling noise, generated by the vibrating foils, pierced the wind as the Brazil team made a turn and headed back downwind to finish the race. Providing expert analysis throughout on this sport — which has been likened to Formula One on water — was Hattie Rogers, a 25-year-old who is one of the world's best foiling sailors and hopes to one day compete in SailGP. After the third race had ended — each race lasts a maximum of 16 minutes — The Athletic's boat made its way to where most of the F50s had gathered. Each team was quickly joined by their support boat ahead of the fourth and final race of the afternoon. Circling above were two helicopters, capturing the action for the TV coverage. A boat that was able to keep pace with the F50s was filming the race, too. It was at this moment that Rogers informed everyone on board that we were going to chase the boats from the start to the first mark on the course — a message that could be translated to 'Hold on!'. Launching out of a timed start, the fleet can accelerate at speeds close to 100kmh as they converge on Mark 1; getting there first gives a team a huge advantage before they head downwind for two laps of the course. As the 10,000-strong crowd counted down from 10, we quickly found ourselves trying to keep pace with the F50s — but even reaching speeds of 35 knots (40mph) wasn't enough to stay with the 11 teams. The wind pounded against my face as I attempted to look straight ahead, turning me temporarily into a Wallace and Gromit character. To shield myself, I moved my head to the left and right for split seconds at a time. One person on board was left feeling somewhat queasy as the RIB ripped through the water. To watch the athletes on board dart from one side of the F50 to the other at speed brought home the physicality of this sport. They had already completed three 12-minute races in relatively quick succession, but still had the energy to sprint nearly 10 metres across a moving boat. The Australian team, now owned by Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman and led by Tom Slingsby, an Olympic and America's Cup champion, had built up a solid lead. But there was an incredibly close call with the Great Britain team, which even caused Rogers to wince. Rogers was quick to explain that any penalty would have to be taken on the water and that Britain would be asked to slow down if one was given. Advertisement Britain weren't penalised and managed to hold off the Italian team to finish second, capping off a good day's work on home waters. They won the first race in front of a roaring crowd, and followed that up with two second-place finishes and a third-place finish. As the Flying Roos celebrated their win, the RIB made its way back to Camber Quay, where we, along with several other boats, were instructed by the harbourmaster to wait until a ferry had docked before proceeding forward. After the thrill of chasing the F50s, it was a reminder that the Isle of Wight ferry waits for no one.
News.com.au
21-07-2025
- Sport
- News.com.au
‘I'm still baffled': Penalty costs Australia place in final at Great Britain SailGP
Australia's hopes of a podium finish at the Great Britain Sail Grand Prix came undone in dramatic fashion overnight on Sunday, with extreme conditions and a contentious umpire call combining to derail their finals campaign. With top-end winds and waves pounding the fleet in Portsmouth, teams were pushed to the limit in what many described as 'survival racing'. The high stakes racing on Sunday saw Great Britain and Spain both suffer tech issues during racing, near-misses across the fleet, and boats reaching speeds of up to 83km/h in wild conditions. Tom Slingsby's crew were in the hunt for the third spot in the winner-takes-all final ahead of Switzerland after the team secured a fourth place in the fifth fleet race. However the defining moment for the Australians came in the sixth race, when they were hit with a controversial penalty in a four-boat incident involving Canada, Denmark and Great Britain. Commentator Stevie Morrison said: 'Oh my lord, Australia relative (to) Canada, that's unbelievable. Huge penalty to the Roos.' Watch the moment Australia was penalised for in the video above Australia was deemed the outside boat failing to give room to Canada by the umpires, a decision that forced the team to go behind Canada losing several places in the fleet and ultimately a place in the final. Slingsby disagreed with the penalty, saying: 'We obviously didn't even see Canada, they were three boats apart. 'I have seen the footage and I am still shocked as to how we got the penalty. GBR didn't even attempt to gybe and if they did we would have had to avoid and keep clear of them, but I am still baffled by the decision. That cost us the final.' New Zealand's Black Foils claimed victory on the Solent in Portsmouth, edging out Great Britain and Switzerland, while Australia finished fourth overall at the UK event. Slingsby said there was plenty to take away from the weekend, but he was left wanting more as the BONDS Flying Roos chase their second win of the season after saluting in Auckland in January. 'We've got speed and we've got the skills to do it,' Slingsby said. 'We had some really great moments and some average moments, but we know we can sail better than that so we will regroup and review the footage so we can keep improving.' The Kiwi win has triggered a shake-up at the top of the season five leaderboard with New Zealand now moving into first place on 54 points, narrowly ahead of the BONDS Flying Roos on 52 points, and Spain close behind on 51 points. New Zealand have been one of the most consistent and successful teams over the course of SailGP's existence but the Black Foils are yet to win an overall championship. The Rolex SailGP Championship now shifts to Sassnitz, Germany, with the next Grand Prix scheduled for August 16-17, as the BONDS Flying Roos continue their campaign for a fourth championship title.
Japan Times
21-07-2025
- Sport
- Japan Times
New Zealand spoils Great Britain's party in SailGP showdown
Peter Burling's New Zealand team crashed what should have been a triumphant home celebration, pipping Dylan Fletcher's British crew to victory in a nail-biting final at the Emirates Great Britain Sail Grand Prix on Sunday. The Kiwis spoiled the party on the Solent, claiming their second event win of the season and third race victory of the weekend in a dramatic winner-take-all showdown that left the packed Portsmouth shoreline deflated. Perfect sailing conditions greeted the fleet, with a nice, steady breeze providing ideal racing weather that allowed the high-speed F50 foiling catamarans to showcase their full potential as they approached speeds of 100 kph across the water. Fletcher's Emirates GBR team looked destined for glory after commanding the leaderboard following a dominant opening day, but was edged out at the line when it mattered most. The Olympic gold medalist was left to rue what might have been. Switzerland added its own slice of history by reaching its first-ever SailGP final, though its fairytale run was cruelly cut short by technical gremlins that left the team out of contention in the decider. The day's drama wasn't confined to the final, with France bouncing back from its own technical woes to seize victory in Race 6 — but only after a farcical interruption when a rogue spectator boat invaded the course and forced a restart. Twelve national teams had battled across seven fleet races for the coveted spots in the three-boat final, with Emirates GBR, New Zealand and Switzerland emerging from the pack as fans buzzed with anticipation along the shoreline. The victory propelled New Zealand to the summit of the overall SailGP championship leaderboard with 54 points, nudging ahead of Australia (BONDS Flying Roos) which has 52 points and Spain with 51. Britain's wait for a home event victory continues, despite accumulating a long list of SailGP podiums around the world.
New York Times
20-07-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Great Britain Sail Grand Prix: New Zealand victorious, Australia's penalty, and spectators invade
After dominating the first day of the Great Britain Sail Grand Prix in Portsmouth, the British team couldn't quite seal victory in front of the home crowds as Pete Burling and the Black Foils from New Zealand stole their thunder in the three-boat final on Sunday. But Dylan Fletcher's boat came a close second across the finish line for a solid British result. Advertisement Sebastian Schneiter might have been disappointed to have lost the early advantage out of the start, but it was the first time the Swiss team had fought their way to a SailGP three-boat final, and Schneiter was upbeat about the team's clear improvements. It was a windier day on the Solent, a narrow strait between the English south coast and the Isle of Wight, and the French were back up and running on day two of the close-to-shore competition after their wing sail snapped on Saturday. There was controversy, too, as the sixth fleet race was suspended because a spectator boat had invaded the course. All 12 teams blasting around an incredibly tight course for the day's three fleet races meant there was hardly time for anyone to catch their breath. The spectator fleet was behaving itself on the western boundary of the course, with close to a hundred cruising yachts and other craft all in a neat, orderly line behind the marshal boats. All except one that, just before the start of Race 6, drifted into the course area just as the F50 catamarans were jostling for position in the final two minutes before the start, and forced a restart. Hannah Mills, Britain's double Olympic Champion and strategist — the sailor who plots a weaving path through the high-speed traffic for the driver steering the F50 — wasn't entirely sure what had happened in all the confusion. 'Something to do with a boat in the start box,' Mills said. 'Which is not a great place for a small yacht to be when there are 12 F50s coming in, all screaming at them. So yeah, it was the right move by the race management to just postpone the start and do it again.' Australian driver Tom Slingsby thought the problem was more the number of course marshals trying to shepherd the stray boat back into the flock. 'I think more of the problem (than the yacht) was five police boats which surrounded him,' Slingsby said. 'Yeah, we had an incident, only just avoided the police boat, so that wasn't really helping out the situation.' There were a lot of breakdowns across the weekend, and a lot of technical problems besetting the fleet — some self-inflicted, some not. So it felt appropriate that DJ Pete Tong was on the decks to play the spectators out of the 10,000-seater temporary stadium at the end of an entertaining but often scrappy and confusing day. The U.S. team struggled to get up and running until the last fleet race of the afternoon, suffering from an up/down cylinder failure in the starboard daggerboard case. Unlike in Formula One, where the teams are responsible for the smooth running and maintenance of their own cars, all the equipment in SailGP is centrally managed, so Taylor Canfield's crew are bound to have questions about the reliability of their boat. Advertisement There was a similar problem for the British, as driver Dylan Fletcher explained to The Athletic: 'We had an issue with our port (left-hand side) board, which wasn't functioning or lifting up in the first race. We fixed it for the second race. 'Then we had the same issue again, but luckily they fixed it and we missed the start of the third race but still managed to get around. And it was working and all good for the final.' Germany took themselves out of the game when Erik Heil's T-foil rudder snagged an anchor line as they were foiling past the windward turning mark off course. Spain suffered a breakdown, too, after riding too high and falling off the foils. After winning back-to-back events in San Francisco and New York, Diego Botin's crew never found their rhythm on the choppy waters of the Solent. Still, it wasn't all bad news. Overnight, the SailGP tech team had managed to get France's broken wingsail fixed after it snapped before Saturday's racing had even begun. On Sunday, Quentin Delapierre's crew got back into their groove in time to win the restarted fleet Race 6 and finish second in the seventh and final fleet race. The usually high-flying and fast-starting Australians just couldn't bring their A-game to Portsmouth. However, after starting last in Sunday's first fleet race, the Aussies turned on the afterburners to scythe their way through the pack to salvage a miraculous fourth place across the finish line. Despite not quite being at their best, it looked like Slingsby might yet be able to elbow his way past the Swiss for that third spot in the final. But in fleet Race 6, he received an expensive penalty in a complicated four-boat situation which involved Canada, Denmark, Britain and Australia. Speaking more than an hour after the incident, Slingsby was perplexed at how the remote umpires — based in London — had penalized his team rather than Britain. 'I'm sort of shocked at how we got the penalty,' Slingsby said. 'The British didn't try to avoid the two starboard tackers and we've got to avoid the British boat, which we did clearly. 'It's not our fault, and we lost probably eight or nine positions because we had to get behind Canada, who were stopped at the bottom of the course. It's frustrating because obviously we would have been in the final.' SailGP moves to Sassnitz on the Baltic coast of Germany for racing on August 16 and 17.
