In SailGP, Strategists Are the Eyes of the Sport

 

 

“They are watching and assessing a constantly changing race. And most strategists are women.

 

At racing speeds, “There’s not much time to think,” Hannah Mills said. She would know.

 

The British Olympian’s role in Mubadala Abu Dhabi SailGP — as the strategist aboard Emirates GBR — is to see and synthesize wind streaks [1], closing speeds [2], risks, whatever she sees around her or on the screen in front of her. And then, see what’s changed now, a few seconds later.

 

With SailGP returning to Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, this time for its season finale Saturday and Sunday, it marks the fifth season that each team is required to include at least one woman.

 

Early results of that requirement were uneven, but it raised the game for SailGP, which also added the crew position of strategist that top female sailors have mostly filled. The strategist feeds big-picture information to crewmates who are too focused to look around.

 

SailGP now has women in multiple roles, including Martine Grael driving for Mubadala Brazil with a male strategist, the Olympian Paul Goodison.

 

Liv Mackay is the strategist for New Zealand’s team, coming aboard soon after the position was introduced in Season 2, and earning her spot in a tryout rather than with medals and championships. Mackay brought skills as a skipper of smaller foiling catamarans and developed into a core player.

 

The team’s driver, Peter Burling, is accustomed to acting rapid-fire on rapid-fire input. “You get to a stage where you expect key information at a key time,” he said about the strategist’s role. “It would hurt to not have that.”

 

He remembers 2019 and the first SailGP races, “struggling to get around the course” in unrefined boats with no input from a strategist aboard or a coach ashore in a video booth.

 

Although “communications are my primary role,” Mackay said, “I also drive the boat out of maneuvers, while Pete runs across the boat to his new steering station.”

 

“When the wind goes light and we sail with fewer crew, I move to the front to manage jib trim and grinding,” she said. “Comms duty then flows to our wing-sail trimmer, Blair Tuke.”

 

The list of wins for the Burling/Tuke combination includes world championships, Olympic gold and the America’s Cup. No matter who is on the case, Mackay said, “The key is trust.”

 

Heading into the finale, New Zealand’s Black Foils is second for the season with 10 first-place finishes and 24 top threes. Team GBR leads with 11 wins and 29 top threes.

 

Unlike Black Foils, the British team on Emirates GBR never sends the strategist forward. “We place that much importance on Hannah’s role,” the driver Dylan Fletcher said.

 

Observing that he operates with less input from an onshore coach than other drivers, he said, “One of our strengths is relying on the people on the boat. I go with Hannah’s calls 99 percent of the time.” If he disagrees, Mills said, “we just crack on and deal with it in debrief.”

 

Fletcher and Mills were never on the same boat before SailGP, Mills said, “but we grew up together” through the British system of developing Olympic sailing teams. The process led both to gold, and they marched together under their country’s flag at Tokyo in 2020.

 

The female strategists of SailGP are a conspicuous element of the first generation of women to gain a foothold at the high end of sailing. Olympic sailing included women in the Games at Paris in 1900, but then what?

 

Now, 10 of the 12 team strategists in SailGP are women.

 

Mills’s two gold and one silver medal were won in a pursuit of personal excellence. Today, she is the mother of a 3-year-old, and SailGP is making that work. Asked if she could have combined motherhood with the intensity of Olympic training, she laughed. No is the only possible answer.

 

Now she finds herself at a different pinnacle of the sport. “I fly to the venue on Tuesday, and I fly out on Sunday night or Monday,” she said. “I have a family life.”

 

Even though Mills’s earlier racing was in slower boats, she said, “When I came to the F50, I was pleasantly surprised that what the driver needed to know was pretty much what anyone skippering any race boat would need to know.”

 

It matters that SailGP’s boats are fast enough to hurt people, and they’re getting faster. “A constantly evolving beast” Burling calls it.

 

Communications run through headsets built into helmets, and part of the training is learning when to talk so that only one person speaks at once.

 

The strategist sees a flood of data on the screen, but with the risk of interruption. Eyeballs come first.

 

Burling said that his Black Foils team “has won the last three events in the U.A.E.” in shifty winds and flat water.

 

Very light conditions can be the most hectic, as he described, with boats going different speeds at different angles, and they don’t want “surprise interactions; when you subtract crew to lighten the boat, you’re going slower but working harder.”

 

In light winds, likely at Abu Dhabi, a mistake can drop the boat off foils for a huge loss. Even an almost-imperceptible extra two knots of breeze puffing out there, somewhere, could make a winning difference between foiling or not.

 

The strategist’s role is to see that and report, or to make the right bet, most of the time. Where else would a Type A want to be?

 

“There is no way,” Mackay said, “I’m leaving SailGP by choice.”” [3]

 

 

1. In sailing, a wind streak, often referred to as a wind lane or "pressure" (in racing lingo), is a visual cue on the water's surface that indicates the direction and strength of the wind.

 

Description and Cause

Wind streaks appear as long, glassy, or shiny lines of water running parallel to the wind direction, between areas of darker, rougher water.

 

    Cause: The streaks are a result of a phenomenon called Langmuir circulation, where the wind causes the surface water to circulate in horizontal, parallel "tubes" just below the surface. The shiny streaks are the areas where surface water is sinking between these circulating tubes, collecting bubbles and debris, and slightly reducing wave height compared to the surrounding water.

 

    Appearance: Darker areas of water typically mean more wind ("more pressure"), as the increased wind speed creates more ripples and a rougher surface that reflects less of the sky's brightness to the observer. The smoother, shinier streaks are the areas of relatively less wind or sinking water.

 

Significance in Sailing

 

Sailors, particularly those in dinghy or race boats, constantly watch for wind streaks and other visual indicators (like ripples, flags, or telltales on sails) to make tactical decisions and optimize their course and sail trim.

 

    Wind Direction: The streaks provide an accurate visual indication of the true wind direction on the water's surface, helping a sailor align their boat correctly.

 

    Wind Strength: The appearance of streaks (often beginning to form when wind speeds reach about 8-12 mph or 8-10 knots) helps sailors estimate wind speed, often in conjunction with the Beaufort Scale. Darker water indicates gusts or "puffs" of stronger wind, while the shinier lanes indicate lulls or weaker wind.

 

    Tactics: During a race, a crew member might call out "pressure looks better on the right side of the course," referring to an area with more dark streaks and thus stronger wind, to help the team decide which way to steer.

 

By observing wind streaks, sailors can anticipate wind shifts and changes in pressure to maintain the most efficient course and speed.

 

3. In sailing," closing speed" is a general maritime term that refers to the rate at which two vessels are approaching each other.

 

It is a critical concept for collision avoidance and safe navigation, especially in crowded waters or during sailing races.

Understanding Closing Speed in Navigation

 

The core idea of closing speed is simply the sum of the speeds of the two boats if they are moving directly towards one another. For example, if two sailboats are approaching each other head-on, each traveling at 5 knots, their closing speed is 10 knots.

 

In a sailing context, however, calculating closing speed is more complex than simply adding speeds because sailboats rarely travel in straight lines or directly at each other, particularly when sailing into the wind (beating or close-hauled). Factors influencing closing speed include:

 

    Relative Angles: The direction each boat is traveling relative to the wind and to each other is the primary determinant of how quickly the distance between them is diminishing.

 

    Velocity Made Good (VMG): This is a key racing term that describes a sailboat's actual speed towards a specific destination (like a race mark) rather than its speed through the water. In a tactical scenario, sailors are often concerned with the VMG towards an intersection point.

 

    Apparent Wind: The wind a sailor actually feels on the boat (a combination of true wind and the wind created by the boat's motion) constantly changes as the boat's speed and direction change, affecting its actual speed and course.

    Rules of the Road: Navigational rules, such as the boat on starboard tack having right of way over the boat on port tack, dictate how sailors should alter their course to avoid collisions, which inherently affects their relative speeds and closing speeds.

 

Practical Implications

In sailing, a high closing speed between vessels means a lot can go wrong very quickly, requiring prompt and decisive action to prevent an accident. Situations with high closing speeds include:

 

    Crossing Situations: When two boats are on a collision course at crossing angles.

    Racing Tactics: Sailors must constantly evaluate their closing speed and VMG relative to competitors and race marks to make tactical decisions about when to tack or jibe.

    High-Performance Craft: Modern foiling sailboats and fast multihulls can reach very high speeds (sometimes faster than the actual wind speed), making their closing speeds significantly higher and requiring even greater vigilance.

 

Ultimately, understanding closing speed is crucial for situational awareness and safety on the water. A good first reaction in potential collision scenarios is often to slow down to allow more time for corrective maneuvers.

 

2. In SailGP, Strategists Are the Eyes of the Sport. Livingston, Kimball.  New York Times (Online) New York Times Company. Nov 27, 2025.