Providing race-day current data at 10-minute intervals for Season 2 race events through to March 2022.

Marine consultancy and survey company ABPmer is the official supplier of ocean intelligence to SailGP, a global sail racing championship, featuring eight teams going head-to-head on high performance F50 foiling catamarans in short, intense races through nine international events.

Season 2 of the Championship is well underway; starting in April, the world class athletes competed in Bermuda, before heading to Europe for back-to-back events in Taranto-Italy, Plymouth-UK and Aarhus-Denmark. 

ABPmer is providing race-day current data at 10-minute intervals for Season 2 race events through to March 2022, including Saint-Tropez, Cadiz-Andalusia (Spain), and San Francisco, where tides are the primary driver of surface currents.

Damon O’Brien, ABPmer’s Managing Director, said,

“We are delighted to be supporting SailGP with tidal intelligence during the 2021/2022 Championship season. Both SailGP race management and the world-class athletes benefit from our modelling specialists’ high-resolution hydrodynamic (water motion) numerical model outputs, delivering accurate representations of current speed and direction across the race areas.”

Example tidal current data around the Plymouth race area

Alex Reid, Head of Systems at SailGP, said:

“It is very important to have accurate tidal data from a sailing and race management perspective. A large number of calculations on the F50s relating to wind, performance analysis, navigation and control systems rely on tidal data. The level of fidelity that ABPmer has been able to provide has really increased the quality of the data, which translates into a number of tangible improvements across the platform.”

With the teams flying the cutting-edge F50 wingsailed catamarans to astonishing speeds approaching 100 km/h, tidal current information is a key data-feed used to optimise performance on race days.

We are a recognised leader in offshore, coastal and estuarine numerical modelling, and have supported TeamGBR, the British Sailing Team in the Olympics and Paralympics. Our sophisticated numerical models regularly support estuarine, coastal and offshore projects, including feasibility and design studies, impact assessments and operational planning.

^{Main photo: Spain SailGP Team in action during a practice session ahead of Great Britain SailGP, Event 3, Season 2 in Plymouth, Great Britain. 15 July 2021. Photo: Jon Buckle for SailGP. Handout image supplied by SailGP.}