Fast. Competitive. Cutting edge. Racing catamarans across open water at breakneck speeds has never been more exciting than it is today. This is the world of SailGP, a new take on an old sport that is gaining fans around the globe every day.
Andrew Weeks Photography
SailGP consists of nine teams representing countries from the Americas to Australia all racing identical catamarans—called F50s—on closed courses in some of the world’s most iconic waterways, from Sydney to Chicago.
“It's the fastest boats, the best sailors in the world, competing on very tight race tracks, right in front of downtowns,” said Jimmy Spithill, CEO and driver of the United States SailGP team F50. “It's Formula One on the water.”
What sets SailGP apart from other sailing sports is two-fold. Because each team races identical F50s, skill (not the biggest bank account) decides the winner. The other differentiator is cutting-edge technology. Each boat is basically a giant Internet of Things device speeding across the water at up to 60 MPH—four times faster than the wind propelling their wing-like sails.
Fastest IoT device on the water
There are 125 sensors on each of the nine F50s. The course is virtual, marked off by GPS on-board the F50s and using buoys to demark turn gates and the finish line. Together, these sensors stream tens of thousands of real-time data points per second, which is instrumental to each team’s success and the experience of fans watching from shore and around the globe.
All of this boat-generated data is sent to the SailGP command center in the UK to be processed, then sent back to the race for teams to act on. Not only do support crews use this telemetry data in between races to help their teams calibrate and compete throughout the two-day events, but the data also supplies stats to live-stream network and internet broadcasts for each of the day’s three races. Coaches in chase boats can also access live feeds on their tablets to monitor wind direction, how the F50’s are performing, hydrofoil angles, and much more.
5G is instrumental to the entire experience
To move all of these separate data streams off the water requires an ultra-reliable, low-latency, high-bandwidth wireless network that can scale on demand. This is why SailGP teamed up with T-Mobile. To meet SailGP’s needs, T-Mobile constructed dedicated towers at each U.S.-based race site. These towers provide the dedicated 5G connectivity to handle all of SailGP’s data needs.
“We've set up a private network here in the most extreme conditions,” said Callie Field, president of T-Mobile for Business. “People sailing across open water at 50 knots generating 30,000 bits of data per second that's being transmitted to the cloud. This is an unbelievable opportunity for T-Mobile to demonstrate what our 5G Advanced Network Services can do.”
Even the entry gates to the event have SIM cards in them. Anything and everything that is generating data is sending that data over T-Mobile’s network. All told, 48 billion data requests are generated at each event.
It’s racing, not sailing
Because of the tight stadium-like courses, intensive use of data and cutting-edge technologies like augmented reality, and the high levels of skill required to win, fans of motorsports and other racing types are drawn to SailGP.
“It's not the conventional image of a sailboat, this is something completely different,” said Russell Coutts, CEO of SailGP. “To create the insights and the information needed to run these boats and provide the fans with the insights they want, it is critical to reduce the latency as much as we can. Certainly T-Mobile has provided, by far, the fastest solution that we've ever seen.”
Today’s sports fans are different than those of yesteryear. Many have played immersive, information-intensive video games their entire lives, so they expect high-levels of data-driven interaction when watching a live-stream or broadcast of a race. Being able to reliably move boat data in real-time off the water to London and then out to the world is only possible because of 5G.
The fans on-site can also take advantage of the live steam to see the AR overlays SailGP uses in its broadcast and internet streams. The overlays move along with the boats showing speed and where they are on the course. The course, which is overlaid on the water, shows start and finish lines, grid lines with meter markers, and the direction to take around buoys.
“It's sailing, but at its extreme,” said Sabina VanMal, a Chicago-based sailboat racer and SailGP fan. “It's so exciting. It's so fast. And the technology is just on another level.”
5G makes innovation a team sport
It’s not just racing leagues who are excited by the prospects this use case presents. Industries from healthcare to construction are looking at 5G to see how they can streamline operations and open up new opportunities to improve based on the high volume and reliability of fast-moving data.
“What's interesting is we pay money for TV commercials to talk about our product, but when you're broadcasting an entire sports event live over 5G there's no better testimonial for the speed, the low latency,” said Allan Samson, senior vice president of T-Mobile for Business. “Seeing how it works live really helps people understand how it could work in their business.”
See how else 5G is changing the game for business at 5G HQ by T-Mobile for Business.
