SailGP: Brazil nabs another double Gold medalist
by Richard Gladwell/Sail-World.com/nz 29 Oct 2024 12:31 UTC
Grael and Kunze - Gold Medalists - 49er FX- Tokyo2020 - Day 9- August 2, - Enoshima, Japan © Richard Gladwell - Sail-World.com / Photosport
Brazil SailGP Team has signed another double Olympic Gold medalist to complete its sailing team for Season 5.
Today the Mubadala Brazil SailGP Team announced it had signed 49erFX Gold medalist Kahena Kunze.
Kunze represented Brazil in the 49erFX, sailing with helm Martine Grael, who was previously announced as the skipper and helm of the Brazil SailGP team. They won Gold medals in the 2016 Olympics in Brazil and 2020 Olympic regatta in Tokyo. They finished off the medal podium in Paris2024.
Previously a strategist with the German SailGP team, Kunze will be a reserve sailor for the Brazil team. She is the latest of a series of crew shifts as the privately owned teams open their wallets to achieve a top performance in Season 5.
She joins skipper Martine Grael, INEOS Britannia flight controller Leigh McMillan, Emirates Team NZ flight controller Andy Maloney, former Denmark strategist Richard Mason and grinders Marco Grael and Mateus Isaac.
The latest recruit gives the Brazilain team an impressive four Olympic Gold Medals and three America's Cup wins, along with several World Championship wins in the Olympic classes.
Speaking about the line-up, team CEO Alan Adler said: “We managed to bring together a team with some of the best athletes in the world, which is a source of great pride and makes us very optimistic for our first season.
“We are firmly committed to our goal of honoring our tradition of success in the sport, which has already earned 19 Olympic medals for our country”.
Mubadala Brazil SailGP team will have its racing debut in the first event of season 5 in Dubai on November 23/24.
A sidebar to the very active level of "transfers" within the SailGP league is where the replacement sailors and shore support will be sourced, given that two new teams are building full crews. And others who did not meet their owners expectations in Season 4, are poaching from available sailors inside and outside the SailGP League.
The money that seems to be on offer from the privately owned teams, would appear to be substantial and sufficient to entice professional sailors to exit a top of the leaderboard team to bolster the performance of now privately owned teams, who had a less than stellar performance in Season 4.
At this juncture the recruiting teams seem to be about building value into the owners' quite pricey investment.
Like the America's Cup pundits' mantra: "If you want the truth, follow the money."