Sail team breezes into Halifax from the U.K., hoping to blow competition away

Team Great Britain ready for SailGP Team Great Britain offered a behind the scenes look at its preparations ahead of SailGP in Halifax.

With a total of 10 teams from around the world here in Halifax for the Sail Grand Prix, teams are hitting the water in hopes of passing the finish line first.

Thousands of people have come out to watch the teams race on the Halifax Harbour for the event’s first time in Canada.

The boats being used are F-50 foiling catamarans, which can often reach speeds exceeding speeds of 90 km/h.

“The top speed at the moment on this boat is 99.9 kilometres per hour, so we’re really trying to push that 100 kilometre per hour mark,” said Hannah Diamond with the Emirates Great Britain SailGP Team coming out of the United Kingdom.

Each team only had 16 minutes to make it around the course three times.

Diamond says the most exciting part for her is the intensity of the races.

“We’ve got 10 boats foiling around a really small course, interacting a lot of times with each other, and really really exciting racing,” she said.

Due to how the catamarans are built, sailors use the L-shaped boards at the bottom of both sides the boats to lift themselves around a metres above the water, a method which is called “foiling”.

Each team has six members, one of which must be a female who normally takes up a strategist role.

“My role is to try and give as much information to the driver about things that are going on in the race course, so if the wind is shifting, or there’s more wind on one side of the course. Just trying to build a picture so the driver can make the best tactical decision for our boat,” said Emirates GBR strategist, Hannah Mills.

“Things happen super super fast so it’s about communication being concise as possible and just thinking as much as you can ahead of the game, it’s kind of like a game of chess but on steroids.”

Giles Scott, the driver for Emirates GBR, says the speed of each race makes SailGP such a challenge.

“As the season has rolled on, each team gets better and better, and the margins get finer and finer,” said Scott.

SailGP will continue into Sunday, with races ending around 5 p.m.

Click here for a photo gallery of images from SailGP.

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