Benny the Bilge Rat (soon to have his stage name shortened to The Rat – ed), who seems able to offend everyone by just getting out of bed, reviews the latest episode in the Coutts/Ellison saga.
Imagine, dear reader, if at the next Formula 1 race the only starters on the grid were one car each from Alpine, Haas, Aston-Martin and Williams. Then the Alpine car pulls out with damage after the warm-up lap. Some race, huh? But that’s the kind of third-rate spectacle New York fans were presented with on Day One of SailGP.
This whole circus went off the rails big time. Not so much the promised “Formula 1 on Water” as a formula gone wrong. It was an embarrassment to match Trump’s stuff-ups in the Strait of Hormuz. But, unlike the Orange Ignoramus, I suspect Coutts and Ellison are smart enough to learn from the debacle. It exposed the base-line flaws in their SailGP model. Fellas, change has gotta come, or you’ll soon be toast.
Remember that everything about SailGP is done with television front-of-mind. Sponsors won’t pay unless they can see their names and logos splashed on TV. In turn, the TV outlets want certainty. They need to know that the event they’re broadcasting will fit the schedule. It has to start and finish on time, and have enough pauses in the action so they can run all their tiresome commercial content. The inevitable outcome of those requirements is the frenetic format of SailGP: short races crammed into a maximum two-hour timeslot.
The trouble is, sailing takes place in the open air. Conditions are variable. So, try as they might, SailGP cannot deliver certainty. Day One in New York proved that weakness beyond reasonable doubt.
The wind only reached around 20 knots – well within safety range – but it was so gusty and unpredictable on the Hudson that the process of rigging up the boats with their towering wing sails and then craning them into the water fell well behind schedule. It was eventually abandoned after only four of the promised twelve boats were launched.
Was that fair? You don’t get to race because your boat is further down the launch list? All the hype about bash-and-barge fleet racing at 100kph went out the window. Then, before the first start, the Australians did a massive nose-plant and withdrew for the day. Loving it so far?
The races that followed were ordinary, to say the least. The first was literally a two-horse race after the US cat “failed to proceed” (as they say at Rolls-Royce when they actually mean the car broke down). There was an anti-climactic re-start in the second after a wind direction change. The third was decided by a single port-and-starboard cross.
Riveting stuff! In any case, the whole fandango was, quite literally, pointless. When the SailGP management reluctantly realized that the day was unfair to the teams who couldn’t compete, they decided that no points would be scored. Their media release described the day as “heavily disrupted”. The paying spectators and TV bosses can’t have been amused. I’m happy to acknowledge that things improved on Day Two and the final was enjoyable.
But questions remain about the validity of the whole enterprise. There is nothing at stake other than money. This emptiness of purpose or value is underlined by SailGP’s unrelenting efforts to generate synthetic excitement. Stunts like inviting Hollywood stars to come for a joy ride, or the breathless hype from TV commentators who get more excited about the possibility of a boat reaching 100kph than the actual racing. Last time I checked the winner was the boat that finished first, not the fastest for a few seconds.
The cats and their rigs are so fragile and complex that breakdowns are frequent. Back-up capacity is minimal. The made-for-TV course areas are so compressed they almost seem designed to create close calls and collisions. Maybe that’s the kind of excitement SailGP wants to promote, but it ain’t yacht racing.
Meanwhile, as we saw this weekend, circumstances can force Coutts & Co to change the race conditions on a daily basis. This constant messing about with formats, crew numbers and courses just pisses people off. Nationality means nothing as the pros switch teams at will.
The bottom line is that genuine supporters of any sport need to care. They want a solid, relatable event with established challenges and rewards. Anything else just becomes a crap shoot, and sailing fans know crap when they see it.
– The Rat
