Pensacola Bay's New Winter Crew Changes Every Week or Two

SailGP's training base at the Port of Pensacola doesn't belong to one crew. Through February, national teams will come through in blocks of seven to ten days, two teams at a time, and then hand the bay to the next pair. Port Director Adm. Lance Scott described the schedule to Rick's Blog after the Oct. 19 launch. So the catamaran foiling past downtown in early November may have a different crew by Thanksgiving.

That is the change at the port. For several winters, Pensacola hosted one team's training camp. Now the bay is shared training ground that teams from around the world pass through in turns.

A Shared Boat Named Strive

The base opened on Monday, Oct. 19, with SailGP leadership, athletes and Mayor D.C. Reeves at the dock. The league's F-50 catamaran went into the water as the ceremony ended. SailGP Managing Director Andy Thompson told the crowd, "This is not a temporary pop-up nor is it a campaign," Rick's Blog reported.

The boat got its name the day before the event. Thompson announced it as "Strive." SailGP's technology team in Southampton, England, spent roughly 40,000 man-hours building it. It reached Pensacola the week before the launch, and crews were still commissioning it late into the night before the ceremony. SailGP posted its own report on the training F-50's arrival on Oct. 15.

Speed explains why people stop to watch. Thompson said the F-50 will foil at more than 60 miles per hour on Pensacola Bay. The fleet record is 67 mph, set at the recent event in Sassnitz, Germany, and the boats sail at about four times the speed of the wind. A boat built to that standard and then shared among teams is the reason the base runs on rotation.

Who Comes Through Before the Holidays

The British team, with driver Dylan Fletcher, sailed first. According to Rick's Blog, teams from Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Denmark, Brazil and other countries will train in Pensacola before the holidays. WEAR-TV reported a shorter year-end list of Australia and New Zealand.

Here is what has been announced so far:

• Great Britain, the first team on the water after the launch
• Australia and New Zealand, expected before year-end in both reports
• Germany, Denmark and Brazil, named by Rick's Blog as expected before the holidays

The reports give different totals. American Magic COO Tyson Lamond told Rick's Blog that 14 teams will use the facility. SailGP's Oct. 15 arrival report refers to 13 national teams. Neither source explains the difference. Either way, at two teams per block of a week or more, the visits will stretch well into winter, which fits the February end date Scott gave.

The reason is training time. SailGP is adding Rome, Hong Kong and San Francisco to its 2027 calendar, and Thompson said athletes have been vocal about needing more time on the boats. He named Pensacola's sailing conditions, its facilities and its central location for global teams as the reasons for choosing it. Lamond summed it up: "There is simply no other place in the world that does what happens right here in Pensacola."

How One Team's Winter Camp Became a League Base

The rotation sits on top of a long relationship with American Magic, the New York Yacht Club team. The timeline shows how the port's role grew:

Visit Pensacola covered the 2023 decision to make the city American Magic's permanent winter home. The team competed in the 36th America's Cup in 2021 and the 37th in 2024. In January, American Magic described its new High Performance Center as both its operational base and SailGP's North American training base.

SailGP's arrangement goes further than a seasonal camp. In its January announcement, the league described training throughout the season on centrally coordinated schedules, with technical and shore-side support and use of the base outside race weekends, under an agreement that runs through the end of 2031. On launch day, Thompson described the league's commitment to Pensacola as at least six years, while the January announcement gives the agreement's end date as the close of 2031.

The Port Around the Boats

Not long ago the port's own future was in question. Scott told Rick's Blog that studies as far back as the 1990s proposed converting the port to condos, and its future was still being debated in the 2010s. He credits the 2019 Moffatt & Nichol port vision plan with changing direction. Today the port has five lines of business: a public-facing side with Portside Pickle and the ferry system, cargo that includes GE Vernova wind energy components and CMEX, maintenance and repair work, advanced manufacturing and sailing through American Magic, and shipbuilding with Birdon expected soon.

"I joke that ship has sailed in terms of, do we get the port out? We're here to stay," Scott said.

The rotation is one reason the port matters to the city beyond the waterline. "Those folks are going to experience Pensacola and then go back and talk about what a great time they had here," Scott said of the visiting teams. At the launch, Mayor Reeves called the project "another enormous step" toward making Pensacola a preeminent sailing destination in the United States.

The work is also staying local. Lamond said about 34% of American Magic's workforce is hired locally, and that the team wants its work at the port to open doors for local athletes, boat builders, engineers, technicians and coaches. The team has partnerships with the University of West Florida, Pensacola State College and the Children's Home Society, and a new one with George Stone Technical College. American Magic's own description of the center adds youth and women's sailing and the U.S. Olympic pathway to that list. Thompson said the base should help open the top level of the sport to more women. Two-time Olympic gold medalist and SailGP champion Hannah Mills attended the launch.

Watching From Shore This Winter

The base runs on rotating camps, and the schedule Scott described is the camp pattern itself: a block of seven to ten days, two teams on the water, then a handover, repeated through February.

Community Maritime Park, next door to the port, is back open. It appears on the City of Pensacola's list of reopened parks in its post-Hurricane Isaias recovery update, last updated Oct. 22. Plaza de Luna and Bruce Beach are on the same list. The city has asked residents to use only parks that have been cleared and to check playpensacola.com for updates, because conditions may change during recovery. Both Thompson and Lamond mentioned the hurricane at the launch. Thompson said he has no doubt the community will "bounce back even stronger."

If you plan to be on the bay in your own boat, the U.S. Coast Guard updates its Local Notices to Mariners weekly by district, and that is where notices about waterway activity are posted. A boat foiling at more than 60 mph covers a lot of water very quickly.

When teams from Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Denmark and Brazil take their turns before the holidays, each crew will be sailing the same boat, Strive, from the same dock at the Port of Pensacola, under an agreement that runs through 2031.

Our team has spent decades on this coastline, and the port's change from a property once studied for condos into a working sailing base is the kind of local shift we follow closely. If you'd like to talk through what's changing along Pensacola's waterfront, the Andra Morgan Team is happy to sit down with you whenever it's convenient. Let's Work Together.