SailGP cancels San Francisco event

Coronavirus pandemic forces regatta, scheduled for early May, to be taken off calendar.

SAN FRANCISCO—The San Francisco SailGP event, which was scheduled to take place May 2-3, was canceled, the regatta’s organizers announced. SailGP’s San Francisco event was taken off calendar in response to the Coronavirus, or COVID-19, pandemic.

“We are of course disappointed to cancel our event. This decision has been made to avoid increasing the already significant risk of COVID-19,” SailGP staff said in a released statement. “Health and safety must be the top priority across the world during this unprecedented situation and it our responsibility to ensure we do not further the spread of this pandemic.”

Those who purchased a ticket to the SailGP event in San Francisco will receive a refund by or before May 2.

This year’s SailGP season – its second – is made up of seven teams: United States, Great Britain, Spain, Australia, Japan, Denmark and France.

Five races were on the SailGP docket this season: Sydney, San Francisco, New York, Cowes (England) and Rockwool Copenhagen (Denmark).

No word, yet, of how COVID-19 would affect the rest of the SailGP season.

Season 2 of the SailGP sailing league kicked off in Sydney on Feb. 28 and 29.

Team Great Britain – helmed by Ben Ainslie – was in first place this season, leading with 10 points. Australia is in second place with nine points, followed by Japan (eight), Spain (seven), United States (six), Denmark (five) and France (four).

The captains for teams ranked two through seven are Tom Slingsby (Australia), Nathan Outteridge (Japan), Phil Robertson (Spain), Rome Kirby (United States), Nicolai Sehested (Denmark) and Billy Besson (France).

Australia was the overall winner of SailGP’s inaugural season last year, finishing ahead of the six-team pack with 229 points. The remainder of the 2019 rankings looked like this: Japan (223), China (171), Great Britain (169), France (164) and the United States (163).

Denmark joined the SailGP league this year.

 

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