TRANSCRIPT
"Careful yeah guys!...Cut it...Hold on, hold on."
Australia's journey towards winning all three seasons yet of the international SailGP competition has been anything but easy.
In one of the world's fastest growing sports, crews race in high-tech, 50-feet catamarans with what's called "foils" added to the hull - that operate like aircraft wings - to achieve faster speeds of up to 100 kilometres per hour.
For 23-year-old Natasha Bryant, the Australian crew's strategist, it all started with traditional sailing-boats at a family-run club an hour north of Sydney Harbour.
"It was actually because my brother started racing and he need someone to train against, and so I was like 'Oh, I'll be your sparring partner!'. And so we trained after school a lot, like 4 or 5 days a week and we raced on weekends. From there I learnt about how the Olympics work and what type of boats were part of the Olympics."
The spotlight is on Australia, led by Olympic gold medallist Tom Slingsby, as it goes up against nine other teams in Sydney this weekend, with the Aussies leading the fourth season heading into the eighth of 13 events.
Bryant is among the first Australian women to participate in a program established by the competition to fast-track the training and development of its female athletes.
The Women’s Pathway Program launched in 2021, and opened doors for her to join last year.
While recent Olympic sailing teams have had a more even split between men and women, professional sailing competitions like SailGP and the America's Cup are still male-dominated.
Spanish-born sailor and strategist Nicole van der Velden says the program, which requires each team to have a female athlete on board, has been a "huge step".
"To be able to also show that we deserve to be there as well and we can compete against all the male athletes just as another, so I think it was an important step for us. It's opening lots of doors for young female athletes coming through as well."
Britain's SailGP strategist, Hannah Mills, is considered to be the most successful female sailor in Olympic history.
With two golds and one silver medal under her belt, she says it's a reality she would never have imagined when she first started.
"I think now, you know, what I'd say to any young female sailor who is into the sport, or not even into the sport yet but wants to have a go, is that it's the most amazing sport. You learn so much throughout life, in terms of confidence, believing I can do things I didn't think were possible and just learning so much about myself, and I think, you know, even if you don't aspire to go to the Olympics or do something like SailGP, I just think the skills you get from doing a sport and, you know, having to control a boat and be out on the water, in the elements, I think that's really important for life."
Bryant says she feels "lucky" but worked hard to get into the program after saying yes to as many opportunities as she could, including learning how to sail boats with the wing-like foils mounted under the hull.
She says the program is "a start", but she and other female sailors will continue to push for more to be done to bridge the experience gap with male athletes, many of whom have been sailing the new boats for over a decade.
And with the stakes high, as Australia hopes to secure its first event win this season and maintain a six-point advantage over local rivals New Zealand, a home victory would mean everything.
"My first Sydney event was last year, and I remember getting towed out to the racecourse underneath the Harbour Bridge, and there was heaps of coach boats and boats of all my competitors and everything growing up and they were all following us out to the racecourse. And I knew my family was watching and everything. Being on home soil is something different. The environment around us and the hype behind us is amazing, I love it. There's no other feeling like it."
SBS will broadcast coverage of SailGP from 16:00 to 17:30 AEDT on both race days.
