Denmark, New Zealand and Great Britain set out for SailGP training. Photo: Felix Diemer for SailGP
SailGP Auckland
Racing starts 4pm, Saturday, 18 January/Sunday, 19 January
Wynyard Point, Auckland
Live blog updates on RNZ Sport
After being starved of America's Cup and SailGP action last year, Auckland has a chance for a small measure of compensation when it finally hosts the professional sailing circuit for the first time this week.
The championship is now in its fifth year and has expanded to 12 teams, with the addition of Brazil and Italy.
The F50 boats are designed for high speeds - wind allowing - and race close to the shore for spectator satisfaction.
Here is everything you need to know about the two days of racing over the weekend.
Origins
The championship was founded in 2018 by former America's Cup hero Sir Russell Coutts and American billionaire Larry Ellison.
Six teams - Australia, China, France, Great Britain, Japan and the United States - contested the first competition, which consisted of five events in Sydney, San Francisco, New York, Cowes and Marseille.
Led by Team NZ stars Peter Burling and Blair Tuke, New Zealand joined in 2021, after the Covid pandemic, as the fleet and the schedule swelled.
Australia won the first three titles, guided by Tom Slingsby. However, they were overhauled last year, with the Kiwis finishing atop the championship standings and Spain then upsetting the trans-Tasman rivals in the San Francisco final.
The 2024/25 season began at Dubai in November, where New Zealand prevailed in light winds, heading off Great Britain and USA in the final. Defending champions Spain and three-time winners Australia lost a countback to reach the final race, finishing fourth and fifth.
Format
If you are used to America's Cup match-racing, this is completely different.
Boats compete as a full fleet across five races - three on day one, two on day two - before the top three teams progress to a final showdown.
Across the season, teams accumulate points towards a three-boat grand final, this year at Abu Dhabi.
The bigger the fleet, the more important getting clear on the startline becomes, because you don't want to get caught in the traffic. Organisers are trialling a split six-boat format to alleviate congestion on the water.
All the F50 boats - foiling catamarans - are named because they are 50 feet (15.24 metres) long. They are based on the craft used for the 2017 America's Cup in Bermuda, but tweaked over the years.
They are also identical, so the competition tests the teams, not the technology, which is often the case in America's Cup.
One place on each boat is reserved for female athletes, with the Brazil team the first to have a female driver.
Venue
The 12 venues for this year's schedule are Dubai, Auckland, Sydney, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro, New York, Portsmouth, Sassnitz, Taranto, Geneva, Cadiz, one yet-to-be-confirmed Middle East city, and Abu Dhabi.
Auckland has never hosted an event before, but was supposed to stage one last year. When organisers could not secure the land they needed at the end of Wynyard Point, they decided to return to Christchurch, which had hosted the previous year.
Lyttelton Harbour became a controversial choice when a family of dolphins strayed across the course during training and again the next day, forcing the cancellation of racing.
SailGP fleet assemble at Wynyard Basin. Photo: Ricardo Pinto for SailGP
Without wildlife intervention, day two proceeded, consisting of three fleet races and a final, with the Black Foils emerging triumphant on home waters. Sir Russell was not happy with the amount of red tape required to stage the event at Lyttelton, so developing Auckland as a venue became a priority.
Seeing the giant 8000-seat grandstand erected on the water's edge adjacent to the Harbour Bridge makes you understand why that piece of land was so important to the organisers.
Course
While America's Cup has traditionally been contested out on the Hauraki Gulf, SailGP will race at the other end of the Waitematā Harbour, roughly bounded by the Auckland Harbour Bridge, the city shoreline as far as the ferry building and Stanley Point on the North Shore.
Start and finish will run north to south, but the course runs east to west. Auckland commonly has a southwesterly wind, but this is expected to turn northeasterly this weekend.
While the Kiwis enter this leg with the championship lead and defending bragging rights on home waters, they claim no local knowledge, since they rarely race on this particular stretch of water. They have been acclimatising themselves this week, just like their rivals.
Spectator craft are allowed in designated zones at each end of the course and around the Viaduct Harbour.
Innovations
Two new teams have been added this year from Brazil and Italy.
Mubadala Brazil tap into the South Americans' strong Olympic sailing heritage and have broken new ground, installing two-time gold medallist Martine Grael - the daughter of another twice Olympic champion Torben Grael - as the first female driver in the fleet.
Through Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, the Italians have been a mainstay of America's Cup, twice winning the challenger series, but ultimately losing to Team NZ for the 'Auld Mug'. Last year, they won the youth division, sailed off Barcelona, and this team will provide another pathway for that talent.
Another new aspect of this week's racing is the introduction of T-foils across the fleet, replacing the previous L-foils and designed to help stability at high speed. Early results suggest boats will exceed 100km/h, but they may also have the result of levelling out competition, as everyone struggles to master the new technology.
SailGP women prepare for competition on Auckland Harbour. Photo: Ricardo Pinto for SailGP
Canada clocked 101km/h in testing last year, while New Zealand's first use saw them record 97km/h on Monday, without really pushing it.
Schedule
While racing begins at 4pm on Saturday and Sunday, spectators can get there early and check out the boats being lowered into the water at Wynyard Viaduct.
Burling said this week that spectators would be "blown away" by the pre-race activity required to get everything ready.
Arrive about 1:30pm for the loadout, with racing timed between 4-5:30pm each day, then stick around to see the boats arrive back at the dock.
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