Racing at risk at New York SailGP

The apple is certainly big today, so much so that it has forced a change to Saturday’s New York SailGP plans. Racing has officially moved 30 minutes later in an effort to slot the racing into a more favourable weather window, but that’s if racing happens at all.

Without craning operations being carried out yesterday due to the Queen Mary 2 being stationed outside the SailGP tech site, the launching of the F50 catamarans is currently ongoing before the start of Saturday’s scheduled racing.

With a peak gust of 36 knots recorded at 1218 local time at Newark Airport, craning operations have been significantly compromised.

With these weather challenges and limited teams on the water, there are alternative plans circling the paddock. There is a very real chance we may not see any official racing today as a result.

I’m sitting in the media centre in the southwest corner of Governors Island. The roughness of the conditions is very apparent - the tide has turned and is stirring up significant chop on the Hudson between South Manhattan and Liberty Island.

With a forecast at the other end of the spectrum for Sunday’s racing, we could walk away from New York without much to sing about.

Just after 4pm local time, SailGP released the following statement:

Due to high winds impacting craning operations, SailGP has implemented an adjusted racing format for day one of the Mubadala New York Sail Grand Prix (Saturday, May 30).

A reduced fleet of four boats will compete, with participating teams determined by current championship standing. Scoring will be adjusted to reflect the reduced fleet – with a maximum three points available for a race win (3, 2, 1, 0).

Despite extensive efforts to launch the full fleet, conditions have prevented the craning of all F50s due to winds exceeding the limits for craning operations.

There are currently no changes to tomorrow’s schedule.