Nat Fortier: SailGP Global Director of Communications ahead of the Auckland regatta

There’s multiple debuts happening at this weekend’s SailGP regatta.  

Not only is it Auckland’s hosting debut, but it’s also the first time the new high-speed titanium T-Foils will be seen in action, having been trialled for the last two years.  

Nat Fortier, SailGP’s Global Director of Communications, told Tim Beveridge that the last speed record was under 100kph an hour, but now they’re seeing the boats hit just over 100kph. 

She says they’re all hoping they’ll see that kind of speed out on the water this weekend. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
We got the sailing drama Back and the Auckland Harbor.
Over this weekend, the city of Sales hosting the sale GP.
Thousands expected to watch the twelve Falling catmarans racing New
Zealand Black Force feature some well known names Peter Berling
and Bleir tuc And. Net Fotier is sale GP's global
director of Communications. Good morning, Good morning Tim. Hey, how's

(00:36):
it all looking excited about the weather?

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Yeah? It is looking absolutely incredible out there. I mean
I think if you've wandered down to the waterfront you
have seen that sixteen meter high grandstand. The teams have
been out there training since Wednesday, which has been awesome
to have a bit of an extended training period. I'm
not your weather expert, but from what I hear who
are it's looking like it's right at the top end

(01:00):
of the wind rage for some really really great racing
this weekend.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Well that sounds exciting because we have an inkling about
how fast these boats go. I saw in training. What
are they breaching fifty knots?

Speaker 3 (01:11):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:11):
So the boats.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
This event is actually the first time salegp's rolled out
its new high speed titanium tfoils in racing. We've trialed
them over the course of just under two years, but
this weekend we'll kind of be their debut in action.
And the whole idea of these is that they reduce
drag at high speeds, which enabled the boats to go
faster and be a lot more stable when they do so.

(01:34):
I think our last speed record was just under one
hundred kilometers per hour, and now we're seeing the boats.
Phil Robertson actually in training hit just over one hundred
kilometers per hour, so we're all hoping we can see
that out there this weekend, and.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
They come pretty close to Lend So it's going to
look pretty spectacular from the spectatus who turn up, hasn't it.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
It is super close to shore. Yeah. I was sitting
in the grand stands yesterday just to watch practice and
it's right up there with one of our closest venues,
so right in front of the Harbor Bridge. The boats
are literally going, you know, meters from the front of
that stand. You can actually hear the athletes talking in
their comms. One thing about these new foils is they're

(02:12):
super loud, so you can hear that too, So it's
incredibly close to shore. Really exciting, good stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Any pisky dolphins to worry about.

Speaker 3 (02:21):
No, no dolphins here. I mean there's dolphins, absolutely, there's
life in the ocean, but now we're not kind of
dealing with the same sort of plan and circumstances that
we were down in past.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Sounds lot that hear them coming anyway from we've described
about those titanium.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
Foils, so you know, yeah, I guess I think they
definitely would. Yeah, there are a lot easier. The noise
coming off the boats is loud.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Excellent. Hey, thanks so much. That was great to talk
to you. Net That does net Fortier Sale GPS Global
Director of Communications.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
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