Sail GP Brings Formula 1 Racing On Water To Chicago's Lakefront

CHICAGO — Rome Kirby isn’t exactly joking when he insists that stupidity of all things plays a small role in his day job.

Of course, as a competitive sailor who navigates an F50 catamaran that looks more like a spaceship than a sailboat, that reaches speeds in excess of 60 mph and that is part of a Sail Grand Prix series that will pay its winner $1 million at the end of the year, Kirby’s occupation isn’t exactly normal.

Nor are the boats that make up a Sail GP series that, for all intents and purposes, can only be described as Formula 1 racing on the water. Kirby, who was part of an America’s Cup crew that raced in Chicago in 2016, doesn’t openly show the scars of his brand of racing, which he admits has thrown him from one side of his team's boat to the other after it collided with another vessel at high speeds during a series event last year.

But Kirby will certainly acknowledge that there are some crazy aspects to the sport he loves so much.

Sail GP will make its Chicago debut in June and will showcase a skyline stadium racecourse that will start and end near Navy Pier, where 10 teams from around the world are scheduled to compete over two days.

Chicago is the first freshwater course Sail GP has introduced, which may not sound out of the ordinary. However, considering a whale once forced racing to come to a halt at an event last year in San Francisco and cost Team USA a series victory, Kirby will take any advantage he can get.

But while the racing style has been exhilarating, it is certainly not for the faint of heart.

“There’s plenty of drama,” Kirby said at a news conference on Monday at Navy Pier promoting the Sail GP event on June 18-19 in Chicago.

“Obviously, once you’re in the boat, you’re in a pretty good place until another boat lands on top of you.”

Kirby is part of a US team that has been on the verge of winning several series of events but that has certainly run into a share of misfortune. But he hopes that changes this season when he will be part of the 10 teams that will compete in 11 venues around the world chasing after the $1 million top prize.

As opposed to America’s Cup, where specifics of each team’s boats vary from team to team, each of the Sail GP catamarans are designed to the exact same specifications. The F50s are much faster than its America’s Cup competitive counterparts, reaching speeds that are 2-3 faster when they are traveling into the wind and twice as fast when they are traveling with the wind, Sail GP officials said.

The catamarans, which range in value between $7 million and $8 million each, are navigated by sailors such as Kirby known as “flight controllers” who commandeer vessels that actually fly above the water on foils that change the entire dynamic of the sport. But many of the fundamentals of sailing, such as knowing how to read and adjust to the wind and make the most of split-second reaction time give teams a chance at victory.

“You kind of get conditioned to (the racing style) over time,” Kirby said Monday. “You kind of clock out all the noise and just focus on what you have to do. You get used to the boats moving that fast and things just happen so much faster than with any other boat. …you just kind of get used to it.”

Sail GP added women to its racing crews in the past two years, which has opened up the series even more in a sport that is clearly gaining traction in popularity.

Kirby calls Chicago’s skyline stadium course has a bit of an amphitheater feel which crescendos as teams maneuver in what is a tightly contested course along the city’s lakefront. Sail GP officials said that the city’s metropolitan feel along Lake Michigan made Chicago the perfect candidate for the series, which also makes stops in Copenhagen, Singapore, Spain, Bermuda, and other locales around the world beginning this weekend.

Series officials said that they have initially added Chicago for the next two years but hope to finalize a deal that will make the city a permanent stop in years to come. Unlike other sporting venues around the city that draws their share of visitors, the chance of watching high-speed racing action for two days in June on Lake Michigan is what local officials hope makes Chicago a winner with Sail GP.

“Sail GP is really the perfect opportunity to showcase our city,” Kara Bachman, the executive director of the Chicago Sports Commission said on Monday. “We get to show the world what Chicago looks like from a different vantage point. When you see the boats across our skyline, it’s almost as if they fit in and that they’re meant to be there.”

Sir Russell Coutts, the CEO of Sail GP and a five-time America's Cup winner, said that although the series has raced in New York and has used Manhattan as a backdrop, there is something different about the environment that Chicago provides race teams.

As he walked around Chicago over the past few days after arriving from New Zealand, he said he often feel like Chicagoans take the lakefront for granted. But the unique lakefront setting is something that is not lost on him five weeks out from what series officials say they hope is a memorable weekend of racing.

“I can’t think of another city like (Chicago) worldwide,” Coutts said. “You have a city with a river running through the middle of it and then you have this waterfront which most people never get to see from that perspective … It’s certainly a spectacular venue.”