Canada's SailGP stars are squeezing into Optimists before Halifax
Three days before SailGP’s F50s tear up Halifax Harbour at close to 50 knots, the NorthStar Canada crew will climb into Optimists – the bathtub-shaped dinghies every sailor learns the ropes in – for a race billed as ‘the fastest sailors in the world race the slowest boats in the world’. This is SlowGP.
It's a knockabout curtain-raiser to the Canada Sail Grand Prix, and the full name – Sailing Little Optimist In Water Grand Prix – tells you how how seriously the team is taking it.
The Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron is running the racing and lending the boats, there'll be action cams on every hull and a drone overhead, and the team has already plastered 100 absurd posters around the city. Two of Canada’s best young Opti sailors get spots too, with the hope they humble the professionals.
Each pro has also named their Optimist…
- Giles Scott – Gangly Bean Head 9 or 10. The 2x Olympic champ first learned to sail in an Opti at Grafham Water; at 6'5″, watching him squeeze under the boom will be worth tuning in for alone.
- Nicolas Rolaz – Diabolo 99. The Swiss reserve athlete won the Optimist Worlds in Buenos Aires in 2014, so don't bet against him (Hornsby clearly isn’t).
- Tim Hornsby – I'm Not Racing Unless I've Got Nico's World Championship Boat… Sorry
- Paul Campbell-James – Slippery Gypsy. UK Optimist national champion at 12, though that was 30 years ago…
- Annie Haeger – Washed Up
- Ali ten Hove – Lightning McQueen
- Tom Ramshaw – Squirt
- Billy Gooderham – Bushwacker
- Alex Sinclair – The Lobster Hotel
Racing runs from 4–5pm at Acadia Dock on 17 June, followed by a prize-giving and a poster-signing with the sailors in front of the Bluenose II.
Then the real thing: the Canada Sail Grand Prix returns to Halifax Harbour on 20–21 June, back on the calendar after being left off in 2025. It's the seventh stop of Season 6, and all 13 F50s are finally expected to line up together, with the Black Foils back aboard their brand new boat after four events out.
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