Latest news with #RolexSailGP
New York Times
13-03-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Hans Henken's Long Path to SailGP
Seeing catamarans hit speeds unthinkable a generation ago, an aspiring next-gen sailor might wonder: How do people get to play in Rolex SailGP? Who brings the skill plus discipline plus teamwork plus a vein of fearlessness? As the league prepares to race in Los Angeles this weekend, topping the list of answers to that question would be the Olympic class 49er skiff. There are now five 49er medalists racing in SailGP. Mere sailors need not apply for 49er racing. The experience feels like an emergency that begins when the sails go up. Left to itself, the boat falls over. Speed builds stability. Between two people acting as one, the sailing is a form of ballet danced to an unpredictable score — while perched outside a narrow hull that weighs less than the two crew, hanging from a wire and drinking spray. Succeed in a 49er, and you prove your reflexes and mettle for SailGP's F50 catamarans. And the gumption to tackle a steep learning curve. That was the path of Hans Henken, who is now the flight controller for the U.S. SailGP team on its F50 catamaran. The flight controller uses the foils to lift the boat and 'fly' it above the surface. Eliminating friction leads to very high speeds that demand reactions in fractions of a second. 'It's rewarding when you get it right, but it's easy to get it wrong,' Henken said. 'When the boat crashes, there is nowhere to hide. Sort of like being a goalie in soccer.' To get to this point, Henken soldiered through the patchwork American system of Olympic sailing for 17 years before he won a bronze medal at the 2024 Olympics, then honors in February as the newest Rolex Yachtsman of the Year along with his crew mate Ian Barrows. Henken did not attend the ceremony, however. SailGP commanded his presence in Australia. The Olympic sailor Helena Scutt, married to Henken, accepted for him, continuing a story that has woven them together since their high school years. Now they are settling into a new home in Long Beach, Calif., which will host Olympic sailing in 2028. It is next door to the Port of Los Angeles, host to this weekend's Rolex SailGP event. A circuit for foiling catamarans wasn't even imagined when Henken and Scutt were racing against each other as teenagers in 29ers, the trainer skiff, in Southern California and Henken was already visualizing an Olympic medal. Today, each has multiple degrees from Stanford. She was most recently a mechatronics engineer for American Magic at the America's Cup and now looks toward campaigning a 49erFX with Hans's sister, Paris. They were 10th in 2016. At Stanford, Henken sailed with honors, and college sailing is a rewarding team experience, but it plays out mostly in sturdy little dinghies designed 70 years ago. The skills do not build toward sailing a high-performance skiff. For an Olympic hopeful, Henken said, graduation meant being 'four years behind' other countries that professionalize young sailors. He discovered that he also had to become a campaign fund-raiser and manager 'and that is just as hard as the sailing. None of us sign up for that.' SailGP came along in 2019 with a dose of glamour and an opportunity to earn some money while continuing as the full-time sailor that an Olympic campaign demands. His driver on the U.S. SailGP team, Taylor Canfield, said, 'Medaling in the Olympics is one of the hardest things to accomplish in sport. Imagine the self-discipline. And Hans brings a scientist's view from his aeronautical background. Go figure. He's in charge of flying the boat.' Henken was a few weeks beyond his first wedding anniversary in 2023 when SailGP arrived in Taranto, Italy, with the veteran Jimmy Spithill driving the American boat. On day one, Henken said, 'Our headsets malfunctioned, and Jimmy and I got out of sync rounding a mark, turning downwind.' Turning downwind loads up the wing overhead and presses the bows down. The flight controller counters by raising the ride height. 'I went for it, but Jimmy waited an instant to clear a wave,' Henken said. 'That word was lost.' And control was lost. The boat pitched up, then nose-dived. The plunge washed Henken out of his foxhole. His helmet struck the aft cockpit railing. He was knocked out cold. The overboard alert flashed with eight boats still at speed, with foils capable of slicing off a limb or worse. Henken was found, still unconscious. He left the hospital three days later with a broken sternum and a severe concussion. It was another two days before he was cleared to travel, with four months to the Olympic selection trials, and counting. Henken took a break to recover, but rejoined Barrows on the water only five weeks later, sailing hurt but feeling pressured. They had points to prove. 'We came away assured by what we got out of it, the mind-set, the boat handling,' Henken said. Rested further, but pushed hard at the trials in Miami, Fla., in January 2024, Henken and Barrows made the team and won their bronze in August. The medal completed a long journey for Henken. Six-year-old Hans may have looked like any tiny child in a tiny boat, but the way he remembers it, he was always questioning the way the boat worked with the sail and the wind, and how, and why, thinking like the engineer he would become. Now it is natural for that engineer to 'spend a lot of time in the data center' at SailGP. With all boats monitored and all data centralized, there are fine points to be discovered, but the U.S. team has much to prove. Henken said they were 'looking to find our rhythm again' after sitting out the Sydney event with a boat that was damaged under tow. That was not the turnaround that the U.S. team needed to quiet trash talk from a last-place finish in New Zealand. The only thing to do about that is, go race.
New York Times
13-03-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Brother and Sister Team Up to Race for Brazil's SailGP Team
Martine Grael calls it her 'circle of trust.' The reality of it surrounds her every time she slips into the cockpit of a catamaran to race in Rolex SailGP. Without it, forget it. Any member of the crew can bring on a catastrophe. You have to trust they probably won't, and so it goes, one by one, around the circle. In recruiting the team that will race with her Saturday and Sunday at the Port of Los Angeles, Grael had help from a family friend, the Olympian Alan Adler, who is the chief executive of the Mubadala Brazil SailGP Team and essential to her circle of trust. This is the team's debut season, and he hired experience from the sailors set free after the 2024 America's Cup last October. Then comes one who is his own kind of special. That would be big brother, Marco Grael, also an Olympian, sailing as a grinder, operating the winches. 'Creating a team was about gathering people I trust who also sail well,' said Martine, the driver who steers the 50-foot-long F50 foiling catamaran used in SailGP. 'One of them happens to be my brother. Knowing him forever is the best.' Being from a leading Brazilian sailing family, sister and brother came to the sport naturally, she said. Sailing tiny boats, solo, they were allowed to goof around as much as they wanted, but the itch to race may have been genetic. Uncle Lars is an Olympian, and their father, Torben, has won five Olympic medals and an ocean race around the world. Until now, Martine and Marco had rarely sailed in the same boat. Most often, they've looked at each other across the water. If they weren't racing, they were speed testing in small boats to see how to make both of them faster. Recalling early days with his younger sister, Marco said, 'It wasn't so much that she was always fast. She had a spark. She always pushed herself, always wanted more time, more work. It's part of the family culture. No one is born with talent.' Starting this season as a driver with a first-time team under the colors of Brazil, Martine observed that there was more multitasking than in the smaller 49erFX, her ride for Olympic gold in 2024. Multitasking is coming more easily now. 'It's a mechanical process that you have to interiorize,' she said. 'My goal is to be able to spend 85 percent of my time looking at the racecourse outside the boat and only 15 percent paying attention to dials and controls.' The sailing is complex. Practice time is scarce because SailGP limits how often a team can practice. 'We've been getting only one practice day ahead of each event,' she said. The new team has a steep learning curve against teams that have been in the game for as much as four seasons. Los Angeles looks to be no different, and then it's a rush to San Francisco for the following weekend's event. That places a premium 'on debriefing really well before and after, so you get to the water with a clear idea of what you want to do,' Martine said. English is their language of choice. 'Early on, I asked the Spanish team why they were using English when all of their team were Spanish except one,' Marco said. 'Specificity turns out to be important. We find ourselves, as Brazilians, needing to speak quickly, and a lot of Portuguese just doesn't adapt.' From their home base in Rio de Janeiro, the Grael family is spread across many time zones, and the elders are not camp followers. Martine, the dutiful daughter, sounded regretful that her parents spent 'sleepless nights following the racing on broadcast.' Marco said it was good to have them watching and to get their point of view. 'But no, they don't follow us around the world,' he said. 'A little distance can be nice too.' Competing at home in Rio would be an indescribable feeling, Martine said. SailGP's third event of the year takes place there in May. 'Guanabara Bay has a unique energy, and being able to race in this historic stage alongside my brother, in front of our family, friends and so many Brazilian fans,' she said, 'makes it even more special.'
