The 5 Minute Warning: Andy Rice & Matt Sheahan's 5min racing update
by Matt Sheahan 21 Apr 21:12 BST
There's always a lot going on at the top end of the sailing world, but 2024 is a particularly big one and two British journalists are in the thick of it...
This is your '5 Minute Warning', the first of a series of quick updates on the sharp end of the sailing world. Between them, PlanetSail's Matt Sheahan and Sailjuice's Andy Rice cover a lot of the action at the top end of the sport.
Speaking from the South Coast Boat Show in Southampton, this is a rare moment for Matt and Andy both to be in the UK at the same time.
Matt is just back from attending the christening of Alinghi Red Bull Racing's new AC75 foiling machine in Barcelona. It's just four months from the start of America's Cup competition in Spain and Matt talks about the flurry of recent AC75 launches. And he explains why Alinghi's BoatOne is the most striking of the hulls we've seen so far.
Andy is recently returned from a long tour of Spain around the Olympic scene, where he's covered the 470 Worlds, the 49er Worlds, the Formula Kite Europeans and the Princess Sofia Trophy.
Next on his list is the 'Last Chance Regatta' at Hyeres Olympic Week in the South of France. This is the last chance for nations and their top athletes to grab the final few Olympic berths for Paris 2024, so it's going to be a pressure cooker atmosphere in Hyeres this coming week. Andy will be there to soak up and share all the drama of the 'Last Chance Regatta' as we get into the final 100 days before the Olympic Regatta in Marseille.
ps. As some may have predicted, we ended up running over 5min and finding ourselves OCS (on course side) in our first episode...sorry...we'll try harder to stay behind the line next time!)
For more of the stuff that we talk about during the '5 Minute Warning', go here for more detail...