Okay, I know this is a powerboat forum, but I couldn’t help but let everyone know the dates for Sail GP Season 4 2023/24. I love it—some of the best sports on television and one that the Kiwis are now at the forefront
Kiwis will see these amazing foiling cats in their backyard with round 10 of Season 3 to be held in Lyttelton Harbour, 10 Mar 18-19. Aucklanders will have to wait until Mar 16-17, 2024, to see the boats in action on the Waitemata Harbour.
After a lacklustre performance in Season 2, New Zealand SailGP Team, led by Peter Burling & Blair Tuke, have started to dominate Season 3 with both race and series wins, to put them right up at the top end of the championship and well in a podium, if not championship winner position.
As a petrol head, I can understand the intensity of those foiling yachts, with every race full of adrenalin and excitement. The races take less than 15 minutes to complete, and if there is a good breeze, the F50 foiling catamarans top close to 100 km/h. France SailGP recently set the record at 99.9 kms. Now that is fast in any boat, especially one that doesn’t have an engine or hardly touches the water.
The fourth season of SailGP, the purpose-driven global racing championship, will deliver more events than ever as the league’s season-on-season expansion continues at an impressive pace. SailGP’s national teams will compete worldwide to reach fourteen events – nearly triple the number of events seen in Season 1 – in a bumper season that will span 14 months.
The season will begin in Chicago on June 17-18 before taking in a European leg and two events in the Middle East, then it’s onto Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Bermuda, with the final North American leg of the campaign culminating with the Grand Final in the United States.
