Latest news with #F50
Cision Canada
4 days ago
- Business
- Cision Canada
DP WORLD DELIVERS SAILGP FLEET TO PORT TARGETING NET-ZERO STATUS
DP World, SailGP's Global Smart Logistics Partner, delivers racing fleet into Port of Southampton, ahead of the Emirates Great Britain Sail Grand Prix event in Portsmouth, 19-20 July. SOUTHAMPTON, England, July 18, 2025 /CNW/ -- DP World, the Global Smart Logistics Partner of SailGP, has successfully delivered SailGP's high-performance F50 catamarans and equipment to the Port of Southampton. This marks the global racing league's return to British shores for the first times in three years, ahead of the highly anticipated Emirates Great Britain's SailGP Grand Prix in Portsmouth. DP World Southampton, where the SailGP fleet arrived in the UK, is targeting the achievement of being the first UK port to operate as a net-zero hub, using 100% hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) to power its fleet of straddle carriers and handling equipment. This switch has resulted in an 80%+ reduction in net emissions, offering a forward-looking glimpse into the future of portside operations. Mark Rosenberg, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer, Ports and Terminals, at DP World, said: "It's a privilege to play a key role in helping SailGP deliver a truly global race calendar, with our Port of Southampton setting a powerful example of how modern logistics can evolve. "Our target of net zero emissions really underlines our enthusiasm for progress and innovation in our industry, something we share very closely with our partners SailGP." The delivery marks another key milestone in DP World's partnership with SailGP, which sees the company oversee the end-to-end movement of critical race infrastructure across multiple continents. From packing and transporting the carbon-fibre catamarans to coordinating port operations, DP World plays a vital role in ensuring the seamless arrival of SailGP's fleet to 12 events across the globe this season. Following their arrival into Southampton, the F50s and accompanying infrastructure has now been transported to Portsmouth for the next stage of SailGP's international calendar, which gets underway on 19 July. The UK event is expected to draw thousands of fans to the south coast, with DP World's logistical expertise helping to ensure the fleet is race-ready and on time. Fiona Morgan, Chief Purpose Officer at SailGP, said: "Returning to the UK for the first time in three years is incredibly exciting for everyone at SailGP. There's a real sense of anticipation to be back racing in front of British fans, and it's great to be working hand in hand with DP World on getting SailGP's fleet and equipment through the UK's first net-zero hub port," said Fiona Morgan, Chief Purpose Officer at SailGP. "Together we're showcasing what's possible when sport and industry work hand in hand, and long may that continue." As the series continues its journey around the world, DP World's supply chain expertise will continue to underpin the smooth operation of the championship behind the scenes.
New York Times
4 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
How SailGP Keeps the Boats From Breaking
Sailing wisdom holds that if a weakness exists, the sea will find it. The Australia SailGP team members experienced this firsthand just before the start of Race 7 of the Oracle San Francisco Sail Grand Prix in March, when the wing sail of their foiling F50 catamaran collapsed. No one was hurt, but an investigation revealed a construction problem affecting multiple boats. SailGP, which owns and maintains the league's 12 identical F50s, began to fix the problem. This included investigating the cause of the failure, canceling the next event and upgrading all of the fleet's wing sails. While this incident was striking, it illustrated a larger challenge for the league, which will hold its next event — the Emirates Great Britain Sail Grand Prix — in Portsmouth, England, on Saturday and Sunday. F50s may look like they effortlessly fly across the water on hydrofoils, but back ashore it takes a small army to ensure the boats are constantly ready and evenly matched. 'Every F50 has daily pre- and post-sailing checks that take place from all departments: electronics, hydraulics rigging, boat building,' said Joel Marginson, director of SailGP Technologies, the league's design, engineering and manufacturing operation. 'At the end of the event, all the boats and wings are completely disassembled and fully serviced.' Marginson said this included nondestructive testing — for example, ultrasonic testing, thermography and radiography — to identify any issues. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Straits Times
5 days ago
- Automotive
- Straits Times
SailGP opens cutting-edge facility to drive championship growth
Find out what's new on ST website and app. SOUTHAMPTON, England - SailGP on Thursday unveiled its gleaming new $10 million innovation centre in Southampton, complete with more than 100 boat-building experts and a mission to supercharge the world's fastest sailing championship. The state-of-the-art SailGP Technologies facility on England's south coast opened its doors ahead of this weekend's Great Britain Sail Grand Prix, marking a major investment in the future of racing that sees 50-foot catamarans fly across water at nearly 100 km/h. The Southampton hub houses a small army of designers, engineers, boat builders and specialists in everything from composites to hydraulics, all working to keep SailGP's fleet of high-tech F50 catamarans racing at breakneck speeds around the globe. "The opening of SailGP Technologies represents a major step forward in our continued ability to support a truly global championship," said Joel Marginson, Director SailGP Technologies. "This facility gives us greater control and resilience across the fleet, enabling faster turnaround of repairs, more consistent performance, and a reliable supply of spares while on tour." The facility relocated from New Zealand in late 2023 to be closer to SailGP's London headquarters and optimize proximity to the global racing calendar. The centre will also serve as a training hub complete with racing simulators. SailGP CEO and co-founder Russell Coutts celebrated the milestone, saying: "As we grow, it's incredibly important to have fully integrated capabilities and expertise. This state-of-the-art facility will enable SailGP to remain at the very forefront of industry technology and innovation." Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore Driverless bus in Sentosa gets green light to run without safety officer in first for S'pore World US strikes destroyed only one of three Iranian nuclear sites, says new report Business 5 things to know about Kuok Hui Kwong, tycoon Robert Kuok's daughter and Shangri-La Asia head honcho Asia Air India probe into Boeing 787 fuel control switches finds no issues Singapore Man charged over manufacturing DIY Kpods at Yishun home; first such case in Singapore Singapore Sex first, then you can sell my flat: Women property agents fend off indecent proposals and harassment Singapore Two women jailed for submitting fake university certificates to MOM for employment passes Singapore Fatal abuse of Myanmar maid in Bishan: Traffic Police officer sentenced to 10 years' jail The championship has also launched its first boat-building apprenticeship programme, selecting six emerging professionals to develop the next generation of marine industry talent. The Great Britain Sail Grand Prix takes place in Portsmouth on July 19-20, with national teams competing for personal glory and a slice of $12 million in total prize money. REUTERS
New York Times
7 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Ellie Aldridge, from making Olympic history to trying to break into SailGP: ‘The stakes are very different'
Feel the fear and do it anyway. Ellie Aldridge has long since overcome the anxieties that come with crashing on the water at high speed. Last summer in Paris, she even conquered the world and made history, becoming the first Olympic gold medalist in kiteboarding. The 28-year-old should be the ideal fit for SailGP, the close-to-shore sailing competition where the foiling catamarans can hit peak speeds of 50 knots (almost 100 kilometers an hour — 60mph) while racing close to each other. Advertisement Twelve national teams, comprising six crew members, race in identical carbon-fiber catamarans head-to-head over a 12-month season, which runs from November to November. The high-tech catamarans, known as F50s, travel at a pace so rapid that even the petrol-powered chase boats can't keep up. The difference is, in kiteboarding if something goes wrong, she's only got herself to worry about. In SailGP, a bad decision or poor maneuver can put teammates at risk. 'I'm used to standing on a 1.4m board that weighs 2.5kg and being in control of everything,' she told The Athletic. 'Whereas the F50, it's faster, it's bigger, it's just so wide and you've got all these other boats around you. We're used to big fleets in kiteboarding, too, but with these reaching starts in SailGP, things can change very quickly. You have to be very, very aware of what's going on around you.' Aldridge, from Poole on England's south coast, is a reserve strategist for the British team that lies fourth in the standings and will soon experience the thrill of competing on home waters when the championship heads to Portsmouth, 60 miles or so along the coast from her home town, this weekend for the seventh leg of the 12-round championship. She is effectively the understudy to current strategist Hannah Mills, the 37-year-old double Olympic gold medalist who also happens to live in Poole. Clarity of decision-making is essential to the role of strategist, as it is they who plot a weaving path through the high-speed traffic for the driver steering the F50. But for Mills, and even the rest of the regular race crew, time on the F50s to hone such skills is precious, with opportunities to train and race on these specialized catamarans in short supply given the boats themselves need to be transported from venue to venue for the Grands Prix, meaning the only opportunity to be on the F50s themselves is during the Friday practice before race weekends. So for a reserve sailor such as Aldridge, her access to the boat is limited. She managed to grab an hour on Britain's F50 during the build-up to last month's New York Grand Prix, a precious and rare opportunity. Still, she's biding her time in the belief that one day her chance to race will come. The problem for the next generation of potential SailGP athletes is gaining experience. Sometimes opportunity only arises through someone else's misfortune, and that very nearly happened at the Auckland SailGP event in January. Advertisement 'The team got in touch to ask what I was doing and if I was interested in seeing what SailGP was all about,' she said. 'I was planning to spend the winter down south in New Zealand anyway, so the timing worked out perfectly. I was in Auckland during the event when the Canadians had a crash and their flight controller (Billy Gooderham) got injured and couldn't race. 'There was a message sent out to see if there were any spare flight controllers anywhere and there was none in the whole of SailGP. There was not a single spare flight controller. 'There are a lot of good people who are trained up but they're already on boats and there's no spare. There's no one that's up and coming that can be there, just in case. And when all these new teams come up (in future seasons), like, who's gonna sail them?' Next season, two new teams will enter the championship, a sign of the growth of a sport that is just six years old but with that comes teething problems. Gooderham's injury meant Canada had to sit on the sidelines for day two of the Auckland event. Aldridge would have loved to leap into the breach, but without the necessary experience, knows it would have been a fool's errand. 'I just thought, 'I've been given this opportunity to come, see what it's like,' and yes, everyone expects me to train up to be a strategist, which is really cool, and I am really enjoying learning that role, especially in the GBR team. But it has motivated me to train up in the other roles as well,' she said. 'So I've been on the simulator as much as possible, and on the boat whenever we've got the time.' One job she'd really like to try is flight controller, responsible for maintaining the F50 in steady flight above the water. The higher the boat rides, the faster it goes, but the closer it is to crashing off the foils. Running that fine line between top speed and wipeout is what Aldridge has been perfecting for the past six and a half years of her Olympic kitefoiling campaign. 'We've only got one foil when you're kiting, it's underneath you and you're controlling it all by your toes, and your feet, and tiny, little movements,' she explained. Advertisement 'When you break it down to the basics, it's exactly the same thing as what you're trying to achieve from the F50.' Except, it could be argued, she has already mastered the art of riding foiling's equivalent of a unicycle; so learning to ride a bike should be a simpler learning curve for her compared with most sailors from a more traditional background in conventional sailing boats. Each team in SailGP needs at least one female crew member. While there hasn't yet been a female flight controller, there are no barriers to entry for this role. With Anna Weis already operating in the highly physical grinder's role for the U.S. team and Martine Grael recently driving the Brazilian team to its first race victory in New York last month, it seems only a matter of time before SailGP will have its first female flight controller. Aldridge said she would jump at the opportunity, although she was mindful of the responsibility that came with the role. 'Riding high is what makes the boat go fast, but obviously you're close to losing control and the stakes are very different. It's not just you and your board, which is maybe bad enough, but now you're carrying the safety of everybody with you,' she said. Still, if you're looking for someone with nerves of steel, you couldn't do better than Aldridge. Going into the final day of the Olympic sailing competition, the British sailing team was facing the prospect of departing a Games without a gold medal for the first time since Atlanta 1996. It was all on Aldridge's shoulders to bring home a gold from the one remaining opportunity — women's kiteboarding. This would require her to beat the clear favourite, Lauriane Nolot, France's reigning world champion, on home waters. Unfazed by external pressures or expectations, ice-cold Aldridge duly delivered. Team GB's blushes were spared. Double Olympian and former 49er skiff world champion Stevie Morrison coached Aldridge to her gold, so he knows her mental and technical strengths better than most. He is also one of the commentators for SailGP's live broadcast team. 'Ellie's certainly got the right temperament for the flight controller's job,' Morrison told The Athletic. Advertisement 'Her ability to stay calm in the moment, when going really, really fast, and knowing where the edge is, it's pretty unique. Racing at the Olympic Games, the fact that she could stay totally in the moment, totally on the edge and knowing where that limit was, that was the defining factor between her winning or not winning gold. That makes her the perfect candidate to take on a flight controller role in SailGP.' Having etched her name in Olympic history, you wouldn't rule her out of creating SailGP history, either.
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Watch – Lionel Messi ‘writes a letter' to Lamine Yamal in new Adidas commercial
Lamine Yamal and Lionel Messi have barely ever interacted in public, but the comparisons between the two stars fail to subside. The Argentine phenom is indeed in a league of his own, but one cannot help but compare Yamal to the World Cup winner for the sheer manner in which he took up responsibility for Barcelona last season playing on the left wing and as a playmaker. Advertisement Moreover, the immortal photo of Messi bathing a baby Yamal only makes their connection all the more poetic for it is ridiculous how the exact infant the Argentine was carrying is now set to deserveably take over his number at the club. Messi's letter to Yamal While Messi and Yamal have never shared the field, the veteran magician has addressed Yamal in a recent advertisement for Adidas with some special words. Although it is indeed a marketing campaign, Messi wrote a letter with the words 'Blame it on the boots' and addressed it to Lamine Yamal in the video signifying how both players not only use the F50 boots but also carve out magic on the field. Advertisement The timing of the advertisement could not be any better, for Yamal is expected to take over Messi's iconic number 10 shirt for Barcelona next season, especially with Ansu Fati no longer at the club. Given the teenage sensation's affinity for pressure and style of play, one simply knows that he will not feel the weight of the shirt and will keep playing unperturbed by the noise around it. Yamal and Messi may never share the field for Barcelona, especially with the Argentine all but ruling out a move to the Catalan capital in his playing career again. They will, however, play against each other later this year in the Finalissima.
