On Friday afternoon, I headed over to North Cove in Lower Manhattan to watch the New York races of Sail GP. Sail GP is a global racing circuit of cutting edge one-design 15-meter-long foiling catamarans. The boats themselves are repurposed and upgraded versions of America’s Cup racers from Bermuda on 2017. The six teams are drawn from around the world. On Friday, only five would make the race as the British team got caught by a gust, capsized and broke the top section of their wing mast. (I am sure there is a Brexit joke in there somewhere, but I will leave it alone.)
I planned on shooting video of the foiling cats, advertised to reach speeds of 50 knots, but found that by the time the races were supposed to start, around 5:15 PM, I would be shooting directly into the sun and would likely get great shots of blurry boats in the glare. I went across the river where the light was more favorable, but the Sail GP boats were farther away and often blocked from view by the frenetic Hudson River traffic. Long story short, I got some not-terrible video of the races but realize that the official video is so much better. Their helicopter/pursuit boat/action-cam footage with added computer graphics is really quite good. Here is a recap of what transpired on Frida and beneath the page break, a similar recap of the races on Saturday.