The Rolex SailGP Championship is the most spectacular thing you can do with the elements of wind and water. For the first time, a race has now taken place off the German coast.
Maybe the Flying Dutchman isn’t just a sailor’s yarn after all. That thought inevitably flashes through your mind when you see a boat skimming the water a good meter above the surface, charging straight toward the spectator stands along the harbor – its sail shooting skyward like a spire, accompanied by a strange, high-pitched hiss.
The “sailors” on board answer to names like Erik, Stuart, Felix or Anna. They carry knives and some sport quirky tattoos. But just showing up in a striped shirt with a sextant won’t get you anywhere near this crew. Just before the grandstands, the catamaran whips around in a lightning-fast maneuver and heads for the next marker buoy.
We’re in Sassnitz on the island of Rügen. And those “sailors” aren’t sailors in the traditional sense – in this sport they’re called “extreme athletes”. They wear helmets and body armor like motorcyclists. The knife is for cutting themselves free in an emergency, since they’re tethered to a 2.5-ton catamaran that can capsize in a tight turn while hurtling across the water. The strange noise? That’s wind and water being sliced by the hydrofoils under the hulls as if by a razor blade. The Rolex SailGP Championship has little in common with the romantic image of sailing.
The catamarans are from the F50 class – where “F” stands for “Foiling”, and “50” for the fifty-foot carbon fiber hulls. Nine meters wide, with masts up to 29 meters tall. Which rig gets used depends on the wind and is decided by race direction. Thanks to the hydrofoils, drag is cut so drastically that the boat literally flies above the water, reaching over 100 km/h at just 40 km/h of wind speed.
Conditions in Sassnitz are perfect this day. Strong wind, from the right direction. Team Denmark even sets a new speed record on Saturday: 103.93 km/h. That’s where the physics start to get absurd: as the F50s approach top speed, the water around the foils basically starts to boil. The lift they generate at about 85 km/h is so strong that the water above them vaporizes at just 30 °C. Cavitation bubbles form, the flow breaks off, the boat shudders, and beyond 100 km/h, damage is imminent – every crew’s nightmare. After all, you don’t swap a foil like a tire in the pit lane. But then, it’s always also about the show. And if you want to win, you take risks. Which is exactly what Denmark did.
For the first time ever, the Rolex SailGP Championship stopped off in Germany. In Sassnitz, that alone was cause for official celebration: “This is incredible international promotion for us,” said mayor Leon Kräusche. He can use the attention. The seaside resort and port town has recently made headlines for less cheerful reasons – like the disabled oil tanker Eventin, part of Russia’s shadow fleet, that remains moored right offshore. And the locals? If you want to find out more, we recommend taking a taxi ride. Ask the driver, “So, how’s it going?” and you should brace for a monologue – plain talk about bankruptcies, tourist rip-offs, millions squandered, empty buildings, shady investors. “But hey, that’s Germany,” comes the resigned punch line.
In the Sassnitz harbor, none of that mattered as the future of sailing staged itself in front of tens of thousands of spectators. And the crowd went wild right out of the gate: when the German boat won its very first race, the stands erupted, people jumped to their feet, shouting and clapping like in a soccer stadium. Driver Erik Heil was visibly overwhelmed: “It was insane! For the first time I could actually hear cheering spectators on the water!”
The Rolex SailGP Championship was launched in 2018 by software billionaire Larry Ellison with Rolex as founding partner. The first season followed a year later. The concept is built for maximum closeness: fifteen-minute races held right in the harbor basin, perfect for live audiences, TV and social media. A documentary in the style of Formula 1: Drive to Survive is part of the package. Hollywood’s in, too – Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds own one of the teams. Sebastian Vettel has a stake in Team Germany. SailGP sees itself not just as sport but as show. Camera drones and helicopters capture every tack, digital overlays turn the water into a visible racetrack on TV. German broadcaster ZDF leans into the entertainment angle. The mole in Sassnitz was converted into a pit lane, and the spectator stands extend onto the beach meadows. Premium seats went for up to €2,500, but budget fans could get in for €64.
A core principle of SailGP is equal opportunity. Every team races the same type of boat, the F50 catamaran, built in New Zealand by Larry Ellison’s Core Composites. Sail height is dictated by race direction depending on the prevailing wind conditions and is binding for all. The goal: no arms race like the America’s Cup, just pure sailing skill. What definitely shouldn’t matter is how deep the sponsor’s pockets are.
Depending on wind, crews are four to six strong: alongside the driver, there’s a strategist, a flight controller, a wing trimmer and grinders. After the driver, the flight controller is key – they keep the boat balanced as it is flying on the foils. Each team must also have at least one woman on board. Martine Grael, two-time Olympic champion, is the only woman in the league to helm as driver – the role that decides over victory or defeat. The thirty-four-year-old Brazilian credits her ambition to the lifelong sibling rivalry with her older brother: “We’ve been competing for as long as I can remember.” On land, Grael comes across as reserved. On board, she’s a tactician reading every gust, describing how the skin on her face is her sensor for wind, making split-second calls at the helm. That clarity and focus make her a role model for young sailors like Anna Barth.
Like motorsport, SailGP thrives on a certain disaster lust. Capsizes, broken masts, risky maneuvers – all part of the game when twelve catamarans blast through narrow harbor courses. Scenes like Sydney 2024 – where the German “cat” was nearly vertical after swerving – are part of the thrill. In Sassnitz, the Brazilian, British and US teams all took hits. But as in motor racing, collisions can bring harsh penalties, with point deductions so steep they sink entire seasons.
Those knife-edge maneuvers demand crews that run like clockwork. A fraction too slow – and the boat drops off the foils. That takes practice. But here’s the catch: each team only has one F50. After each event, it’s packed in containers and shipped to the next continent. That requires a lot of time and smooth logistics between races. Training time with the original is also scarce. Crews resort to simulators or single-person mini-foil boats. “Not ideal,” organizer Andrew Thompson admits, “but we’re planning to station three F50 trainers for practice.” A move also meant to give young sailors a chance to get used to these high-tech racing machines.
That leaves just one open question: Why on earth don’t the Dutch field a flying SailGP team?
TEXT: Matthias Mederer
PHOTOS: SailGP, Rolex
rampstyle #36 – Beyond the Sea
Beyond the sea lies the unknown. And that’s exactly where we’ve always been drawn. Adventure beckons. Our imagination kicks in. “Somewhere beyond the sea . . .” – those are the opening lines to a song that has long since become the cultural soundtrack of our yearning. This magazine is a perfect match. And the courage to set out.
Dream big. Think wider. Go beyond. Find out more
