MULTIPLE world champion and America’s Cup winner Glenn Ashby believes super-fast foiling crafts like the Australian SuperFoiler are the way forward for the Olympic arena.
The three-person, locally designed and built boats put on a foiling show of thrills and spills on Sydney Harbour on Sunday in the finale of the five-event SuperFoiler Grand Prix.
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Ashby, who won silver for Australia in the Tornado class at the 2008 Olympics and helped New Zealand win the last America’s Cup, is a convert to foiling - where a craft glides above the water on blades - and regularly races a one-man Moth - a boat favoured by many of the top sailors from the Olympic and America’s Cup arenas.
While foils have been added to the two-person Nacra catamaran for the Tokyo Olympics, Ashby says this fast and furious way of racing will help attract new fans to a sport which battles for attention at the Olympics.
“Foiling ticks all the boxes,” Ashby said after he, Olympic 49er gold medallist Nathan Outteridge and stand in crew Lachlan Gilmore claimed the finale round honours and the SuperFoiler title on Sunday.
“For me sailing does need to move into the next dimension and as things go forward, foiling should play a bigger part in more classes
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“We have to embrace new changes in our sport.
“A boat like this would grab new audiences.”
Classes for Olympic sailing post Tokyo 2020 are currently under review with calls to make the sport more fan friendly and the crafts sailed more appealing to TV audiences and young sailors in general.
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There will be an emphasis on gender equity, not just in the number of classes sailed at the Olympics but also in the number of athletes who compete at the Games.
On a day of multiple crashes and erratic wind, Sydney skipper Olivia Price missed one race with an electronics problem while two rival crewmen suffered injuries on the final day of the SuperFoilers.
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Gilmore was treated on the water by a doctor for a nasty gash sustained when he slammed into the foil on Euroflex while Sam Phillips has been taken to hospital for X-rays after suffered a foot injury.
The Outteridge skippered Euroflex beat Luke Parkinson’s Tech 2 for the inaugural title with the Steve Thomas skippered Pavement third overall.
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