With just a week to go until SailGP's return to Great Britain, we sit down with Emirates GBR driver Dylan Fletcher to discuss the opportunities and pressures of a home event.
Fletcher says SailGP's Portsmouth debut on July 19/20 offers the team the chance to 'right the wrongs' of recent events and get back on track as the second half of the season gets under way.
'Home team advantage' is a term bandied about when the league enters home team territories - but Fletcher rejects this - 'I don't think we've seen it'. The Aussies, he says, sailed well in Sydney, but ultimately lost out to the British, while the Kiwis 'struggled in New Zealand', that's not to mention the 'torrid time the Americans had at the U.S. events'. "I don't necessarily think there's a home team advantage - it just goes with the ups and downs of the season," he says. Nevertheless the team will be gunning to 'take the energy from the crowd and translate it into a good result on the water'.
There's the additional challenge too of lacking racing experience in the new SailGP venue of Portsmouth. The racecourse is 'a piece of water I've never raced on', Fletcher admits, but the Solent's conditions and challenges are familiar. It will be 'very tidally influenced', with 'wavy water', while the wind conditions are impossible to call. Fletcher's hoping for a 'typical sea breeze' coming from the south west ranging between 27 km/h - 37 km/h, which would result in 'spectacular racing'. Emirates GBR's strategy however is simple. "Our approach is not to overcomplicate it - we'll go back to the basics, do the simple things well and the results will follow."
When it comes to the competition, Fletcher says there's currently an 'A and B fleet' split in the leaderboard, with the top six teams - Spain, BONDS Flying Roos, New Zealand, (Emirates GBR), NorthStar Canada and France - representing the biggest threats. "You wouldn't be surprised to see any of those teams in a Final, but I guess it would be surprisingly to see any of the other teams in a Final," he says - "that's how I'm viewing it". This comes with the exception of the Danes, he says, which have been hampered by 'penalty points and missing events'.
Heading into Portsmouth, he points to current 2025 Season leaderboard podium. "We've currently got the top three teams from last season in the top three overall," he says. Despite this, the team's focus remains inward. "We're not looking at anyone in particular, we're really just focusing on our own racing and building the series across the whole season."
Looking ahead to the rest of the season, Fletcher feels positive about the action-packed European leg of the season, which will see SailGP move from Portsmouth to Sassnitz (16-17 August), to Saint-Tropez (12-13 September), to Geneva (20-21 September) and to Cadiz (4-5 October) for the penultimate event before the season-deciding Grand Final in Abu Dhabi. Fletcher is looking forward to this packed schedule of events with quick turnarounds after a truncated start to the season and cancelation of Rio in May. "The time between events isn't good for me," he says. "It's known that when you're learning a new skill, it's all about repetition." The quick-fire schedule of events marks an opportunity for the team to put on the afterburners as the end of the season approaches, he says. "I'm hopeful that at the back end of the season, we'll benefit from the events being closer together, so we can build some momentum."
The Emirates Great Britain Sail Grand Prix | Portsmouth takes place on July 19-20, with racing from 4pm-5.30pm BTS.
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