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sail gp coming to san francisco
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Latitude 38
• April, 2019
The Latitude 38 crew is looking forward to welcoming readers to the Pacific Sail & Power Boat Show on April 4-7. Our booth will be the same as last year, #C-1, in Richmond's Craneway Pavilion. Stop by our booth to sign up for the Nautical Scavenger Hunt. Your mission will be to seek out merchandise and prizes donated by exhibitors. You could win a Day on the Bay for you and your friends aboard a Beneteau sailboat courtesy of Passage Nautical. While you're at our booth, buy raffle INSETS: MATT KNIGHTON / SAIL GP
As good as they've gotten, you can only get just so much enjoyment from viewing cat videos. No, not those cat videos. We're talking about watching top athletes ripping around the race course on cats that fly above the water on foils. There's nothing like the real thing, baby. That's why we're looking forward to the new F50 catamarans coming to San Francisco Bay on May 4-5 to do their thing, which, reportedly, includes foiling at up to 50 knots! Unlike Oracle's America's Cup team in 2013, the American team is actually composed entirely of Americans, including two young sailors from Southern California. We caught up with them via Skype on March 21. Riley Gibbs, 22, of Long Beach, was in Mallorca training with his new sailing partner Anna Weis on the Nacra 17 for the 50th Trofeo Princesa Sofia regatta, which starts on April 1. Hans Henken, 26, of Coronado, was flying out to Mallorca the next day to get in some prep time on the 49er skiff. Both are Olympic hopefuls. Henken was chosen for the US team after skipper Rome Kirby asked him to come to a two-week-long camp held in Newport, RI, last August. "It was a very rigorous tryout: physical fitness testing and sailing on the foiling AC45s. It was a blast." The team spent about three weeks in New Zealand sea-trialing before moving to Sydney for the first regatta of the season on February 16-17. They were able to test drive all the systems and learn their roles and positions. "Our sea trial experience in New Zealand was just one boat. It was a matter of us figuring out the boat by ourselves and going through the paces, slowly but surely ramping up the speed. Before the Sydney event there was plenty of testing to be had against the other boats on the water, and that was a big learning curve for us," said Hans. "The foiling catamarans aren't like any other boat I've sailed before. It's amazing the speeds they get up to. The boats I sail are pretty small. The 49er is only about 15 feet long. So jumping on a 50-ft boat is a very different dynamic, and having a big crew of five guys all sailing the boat makes it a lot more fun." Hans is very new to being involved in such a high-profile event as the Sydney regatta. "It was a great time, having the media around and showcasing sailing as a sport. Sydney was a great place to have the first event for Sail GP. The harbor there is so into sailing, with such an awesome fan base." He grew up in San Diego. "I would do a ton of driving up to San Francisco for training in the summertime, and I love the Bay up there. It's a fantastic venue and will be an awesome place to sail these boats." Hans went to Stanford, joined the sailing team in 2011, graduated in 2015, then completed his master's there as well. "Sailing is a big part of my identity, so for sure it was a reason to go to a college that had a sailing team, but my primary reason for going to Stanford was they had an awesome engineering program. I majored in aeronautical and astronautical engineering, and Stanford had one of the best. Being able to sail was the icing on the cake." The F50 appeals to the engineer in him. Comparing the F50 to the Nacra 17, Riley Gibbs said, "Everything is so much more powered-up and loaded, with a lot more risk management you have to take into account as far as the rest of the people you're sailing with. At such a high level in the sport, we're pushing the boats really hard, and we're pushing ourselves really hard. With such long hours on the water, we're pushing our physical and mental limits, so we try to keep the sessions not too long so that we don't cause any major damage. You definitely notice it at the end of the day when you start slowing down mentally and physically. There have been some errors made, but nothing catastrophic." Riley's previous experience in Sydney was racing Aussie 18s. "Sailing the 50, the harbor's never felt so small." He was the 2016 North American 5O5 champion and won silver at the 2014 29er Worlds. He's
Left to right: US Sail GP tactician Taylor Canfield and crew Hans Henken and Riley Gibbs.
US SailGP Team Roster Rome Kirby, Skipper/Helmsman Riley Gibbs, Wing Trimmer Taylor Canfield, Flight Controller/Tactician Dan Morris, Grinder Mac Agnese, Grinder Hans Henken, Reserve (Flight Controller/Grinder)
