The windiest venues of Season 4’s 13-event calendar, beginning in Chicago and concluding in San Francisco, have been revealed.
The ROCKWOOL Italy Sail Grand Prix in Taranto was the windiest venue of the season, with average true wind speeds of 42.5 km/h across the two days of racing, according to SailGP data.
However, Taranto was an event of two halves when it came to wind conditions, with day one seeing wind speeds of 45 km/h, while Race Day 2 had extremely light and fickle conditions falling as low as 7 km/h and resulting in the termination of the three-boat event Final.
The second windiest venue of the calendar was the fan favorite location of Halifax, with average true wind speeds of 36.3 km/h across the two days of racing.
The first day saw gusty, shifty conditions ranging from 18km/h to 38 km/h, and sat more consistently in the mid 30 km/h range on Sunday. This resulted in event winners Emirates GBR recording the highest maximum speed of 93.96 km/h of the season during the event Final.
Interestingly, both Taranto and Halifax were won by Emirates GBR under different drivers - Ben Ainslie clinching the Taranto win and Halifax marking the debut event win for current driver Giles Scott.
The third windiest venue of the season meanwhile was San Francisco - the host city of Season 4’s winner-takes-all Grand Final. The event recorded an average true wind speed of 35.9 km/h across the two days of racing, with consistent breeze across both days.
Following racing, the Canada F50 was used to undertake testing of the league’s in-development T-Foils, resulting in SailGP’s racing speed record broken in 33 km/h of breeze.
Phil Robertson was behind the wheel when the crew recorded a new top speed of 101.98 km/h.
