Nat Fortier: Sail GP Global Communications Director on the new high speed T-Foils

Published Jan 17, 2025, 9:18 PM

SailGP racing on Auckland's waterfront will likely be faster than ever. 

The event's expected to draw more than 25 thousand to Waitematā Harbour across the weekend.  

An 8,000 seat grandstand has been purpose-built for the event, and a large screen will be up at the Viaduct for those without a ticket. 

Global Communications Director Nat Fortier says they're debuting new high-speed foils. 

She says the last speed record was just under 100 kilometres an hour and they're seeing the boats hit over that. 

D'Arcy catches up with Nat at the media centre on Auckland's waterfront. 

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Finally the foiling catamarans have landed. Let's hope they don't though literally on the water. We want to see them flying, But they've blanded here and tomoky Makoto. It's taken a while. They've finally rested the action of the fine folk of or to take christ ten in tamaky Makoto and we've joined now live and the media center with a beautiful view overlooking the Hodaki Gulf, right where the race course will be for all of the fans. By Nat Fortier, someone I've dealt with on a numerous occasions over the last few years. Finally it to meet her in person. Good Ant, how are you great to have you in here.

Good morning Darcy, thank you for having me.

She's the global director of communications for this event that I've got to say gets bigger and badder every time. The acceleration of the quality and the size of this event is quite something to behold. I don't think faster than people would have figured the why it's developed and grown.

Yeah, I mean we're rounding out a pretty remarkable period of growth heading into this twenty twenty five season. I think you see it here in Auckland. We've got our largest ever kind of spectator crowd expected, so that would be we've got twenty five thousand between basically the grand stands and the on water fleet. But just globally we're seeing a huge amount, you know, two new teams the city, We're going our first South American event, some really exciting partners coming in. So yeah, it's just it's just been like a real record off season and excited to kick off even bigger and better.

Ron's being Formula one, being to a number Formula one events and wandering into the media scenes and looking at the cookie cat to nature of everything that's been shipped in. It's not as big as Formula One, but it's got the skype, it's got the potential. How big could this event actually get? You believe?

Yeah, we're actually looking at getting a couple of expansion teams next year, so that would bring us up to a fourteen team fleet. And as I think you would have heard, we're trying some exciting ways to you know, how do we keep the racing short, sharp, compelling as we grow? You know, do we need to split the fleet.

Well, h didn't you even practice you split the fleets off for an idea about how it maney can happen in the next season.

Yeah, totally, So we split the split up. We split this fleet six and five event. Usually it would be you know, six and six, but we've obviously missed out on boat twelve. So that's something we'll keep trying throughout the season, see how it fits in our broadcast window and go from there.

And broadcasting that's something that's well developed too. It seems like your revowere across social media a regular television set. It doesn't matter where you go, you can't avoid and it's plainly part of your role in communications, a huge fact to actually get the eyeballs on the event.

Totally. Yeah, so we've got I think in season four we had about two hundred million dedicated broadcast viewers across the season, So it's something that we're just seeing record growth in, especially in the US. We had one of our largest television audience for a sailing event and I think about thirty years there partnering with CBS Sports, So it's something that we're always working on. We're also all is kind of trying to refine that broadcast product to be more fan friendly. I think you'll see innovations where you know, we've used AI and enabled cameras to show how the athletes are moving across the boat with their names on the back. So we're constantly trying to break down what we know is a complex, confusing sport and just make it so that anyone can pick it up and understand more or less what's going on.

Well, this is something that sailing has really taken leaps and bounds in of recent times. It'll started off the America's Cup when suddenly you could see what was happening. You had your boundaries that were cg put around the outside and people did understand that. And for the lay person that is key to getting eyeballs on the sport because it is difficult to understand when you're watching from the water what's going on out.

There totally, and that's always what our team is working on. Our broadcast is produced entirely remotely. We've got a studio in London and our tech team develops kind of all those graphics in house. We've actually got some exciting projects in the work. I can't talk about who they are by name, but other sports coming to us for for help with those broadcast products because it is so compelling and.

Clear today or the next to two days. The amount of people here huge, that's that grandstands ridiculous. It's six stories highs eight thousand bodies on it. That's quite a piece of work. You can see it where you go around Auckland.

It's massive. It's really cool. I went up there and watched a few of the practice races the other day and I think that is exactly where you're going to want to be to see the action this weekend.

Well, I think the media scene is a pretty good view. You're right, that's another way to go.

We'll look after you.

I'm going to try and smuggle my daughter and now I'm not. I'm not going to do that. But what else are you looking forward to over this two days? As far as holding the event in Auckland, has there been anything odd or tricky about? I know getting it here was very difficult. Christ Jitch had a two in a row. But now it's settled. What else have you had to cover off? What else have you encountered?

No, we've actually had a really really lead into this event. I was just saying to my colleagues, you know in London and New York who work remotely, it just feels really calm, really well organ and that's a credit to the local team, but all the local stakeholders. I think you look around in Auckland is really it's built for stadiums, for SALESGP in that stadium style close to shore, inner city racing. You've got a beautiful harbor city in the backdrop. So it's been a great venue for us. It's a really tight venue, it's a tight race track. But for the fans arguably that's an awesome thing. For the athletes, it's an awesome thing. I guess for our site. As organizers, we're always thinking about damage, but mostly we're excited for how cool the racing will be.

It easily gets up with these new t fools. They may very well be damage and we'll be front road to watch it doesn't happen. But you know, people all have a good accent. Natalie fourtyeight, great to finally meet you in person. Look after yourself, Enjoy the next couple of days and we look forward to seeing the whole shooting match back over here again in the not too distant future. Natalie, thanks for your time. This is Newstalk BE on the All Sports breakfas Global Director of Communication, Natalieourtie has just joined us, putting down her cans, wandering off with a cup of coffee and that's what I'm going to be doing it next for coming up shortly, we go to a man by the name of Matt. It's mister Matt Heath. He's talking the Hot Spring Spars T twenty christ Church Black clash up and running with a couple of superstars involved. We'll talk about that and everything else we need to around the Black Clash up next here on the All Sport Breakfast on News Talk ZB coming to you live from one you'd point in Pommicky Makodo.

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