Brazilian Olympic star Martine Grael will become the first woman to helm an F50 catamaran in SailGP

AP Sports Writer

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Two-time Olympic gold medalist Martine Grael will become the first woman to helm an F50 foiling catamaran in SailGP when a new Brazilian team debuts in the fifth season of tech billionaire Larry Ellison’s global league.

Grael was introduced Monday during a news conference in Rio de Janeiro, which will host a regatta May 3-4 on Guanabara Bay against the backdrop of Sugarloaf Mountain.

“I’m going to be representing every girl out there. There are a few girls that could be in this position. So, I’m very honored to be the first one,” Grael said in a video interview with The Associated Press.

“And honestly, I think it’s going to be a great challenge, not just for me as a girl, but as a sports person, to come in a circuit that is already established and trying to perform when there’s teams there that are already skilled,” she added. “I think it’s going to take every little bit.”

SailGP, which was launched in 2019 by Ellison and five-time America’s Cup winner Russell Coutts of New Zealand, includes most of the world’s top sailors, including America’s Cup champions and Olympic medalists. Season 5 will have 11 teams competing in 14 regattas.

Grael’s father, Torben, counts two golds among his five Olympic medals, skippered the winning team in the 2008-09 Volvo Ocean Race and has sailed in the America’s Cup.

Martine Grael and crew Kahena Kunze won the 49erFX gold medal in home waters in 2016, holding off New Zealand by two seconds in the last race of the regatta and setting off a wild celebration on Flamengo Beach. As their skiff approached the shore, a few dozen people waded into the water, lifted the skiff and carried it up to the beach, with the sailors standing on top of it.

They repeated as gold medalists in Tokyo and finished eighth in Paris last month. Grael crewed with Team AkzoNobel in the 2017-18 Volvo Ocean Race.

She said she has goosebumps thinking about what’s ahead in making the jump from the 49erFX to the wingsailed F50s, and doesn’t think it matters that she has two gold medals.

“It matters what you do and your attitude,” she said. “I think it really matters what you put in in the moment and how your team takes it.”

SailGP started a Women’s Pathway Program in 2021. Since then, there has been a woman on every boat in every race, with a total of 37 women having raced onboard F50s. Most teams have an active roster of three women alongside their male counterparts.

“I think I was born in the right moment,” said Grael, 33, who grew up in Niterói, across Guanabara Bay from Rio.

“She was the obvious choice,” Coutts told the AP. “Brazil’s got a strong history in Olympic sailing. And when you look at the talent that’s available, she’s a standout candidate. She’s got two gold medals. She’s proven that she can perform under pressure.”

If the Brazilian team puts the right crew around Grael, “I don’t see any reason why they can’t do really well,” Coutts said. “I think that’s super exciting for the development of women’s sailing because if she does do well and starts winning races at that level against the best in the world, you’ve got to think that’s going to have an impact on all the young female sailors out there, to be aspiring to do a similar thing to her.

“And it is unique that she’s competing against the best males in the sport,” Coutts added.

Tom Slingsby, an Olympic gold medalist and former America’s Cup champion, dominated SailGP’s first three seasons before Diego Botin of Spain stunned Slingsby and Peter Burling of New Zealand in the $2 million, winner-take-all Season 4 championship race on July 13. Three weeks later, Botin and Florian Trittel, his SailGP wing trimmer, won the Olympic gold medal in the 49er.

Burling has one gold among his three Olympic medals and is the two-time reigning America’s Cup champion helmsman. British helmsman Giles Scott is a two-time Olympic gold medalist. Slingsby, Burling and Scott are currently helming in the America’s Cup trials in Barcelona.

“It’s not going to be easy, but she’s got the talent to succeed, I think,” Coutts said.

Grael was scheduled to fly to Bermuda on Monday night to participate in SailGP’s first preseason training camp aboard an F50 fitted with new T-foils that are designed to make the boats faster. She’ll get more time in the boat at a camp before the season opener in Dubai on Nov. 23-24.

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Bernie Wilson has covered sailing for The Associated Press since 1991.