LONDON : With $2 million on the line at this month's SailGP Grand Final, every points penalty imposed by Craig Mitchell and his team of umpires during the season has had a potentially big impact.
FILE PHOTO: Craig Mitchell leads a team of SailGP umpires remotely overseeing New York Sail Grand Prix practice races from London, Britain on June 21, 2024. REUTERS/Alexander Smith/File Photo
What is unique about SailGP's umpiring is that as the crews"fly" their foiling 50-foot catamarans thousands of miles away, every split-second call is made remotely from west London, taking the video assistant referee concept to an extreme. Resembling air traffic controllers, the umpires track the race on screens showing colour-coded blobs and lines representing the 10 catamarans, which can also be seen whizzing past New York's Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty at speeds nearing 100 kilometres per hour through live video.
"In terms of officiating you've got all the data so you can make accurate calls, and you can go back in time. You can look back at an incident instantly, whereas if you are on the water you only see it once and that's it," he said."The downside is you don't get to see the teams ... that's the bit we miss," said Mitchell, adding that the umpires give the skippers and the crews a video debrief when they go through the details of any incidents.
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