00:00SailGP Insights takes a data lab to every Sail Grand Prix.
00:05This lab conceals the best kept secrets of SailGP's fleet.
00:10This room receives data from 1,300 sensors placed on board the F-50s.
00:18Teams can see each other's data,
00:21but only those who know what to look for will find the key to success.
00:26The best sailors in the world know this room as the Grand Prix Vault.
00:33It's season two grand final weekend here in San Francisco.
00:38Pier 80 Tech Base is a hive of activity as the teams head out for practice.
00:43Is the leader of the Australian team, Tom Slingsby,
00:46going to be able to win his second SailGP championship?
00:50There's over a million dollars on the line.
00:52So practice is critical to make sure that everybody's working well together as a team.
00:58But what they're also doing is they're trying to find loopholes.
01:03They're trying to find a way that they can use the tools that they've been given
01:07in a way that someone else might not be using them.
01:10And when they discover a chink in the armour and they discover something new,
01:16they've got to keep that a secret from everyone else.
01:18We're in practice racing, and what are the Australians doing differently to go so fast?
01:23So it's the job of the Oracle Vault to basically dive into the data
01:31and find out what sets the great teams apart from the rest.
01:35They will look at things that differentiates between the teams that are doing well
01:40because everybody has the same boat and they're all operating on the same electronics.
01:45So what are the good teams doing differently?
01:48Oh wow, Australia, time drop, one second.
02:03Australia was amazing in Dunwin.
02:05Especially in Dunwin, they were super fast, faster than everyone else.
02:08Like, no one's actually getting to that speed.
02:11It's a hard gasp here, we'll see what we can do with it.
02:14It's crazy how, look.
02:16At high speeds, Australia actually have almost two degrees of more differential.
02:22Do you know why?
02:24After really just sort of looking hard at the data,
02:27we were realising that if you were able to run more rudder lift
02:31and run less margin of rudders in the water, which made the boat harder to sail,
02:36we might be able to get more riding moment and more downforce.
02:39It was kind of like a little loophole.
02:41Look at the speed difference here!
02:43Tom's sling speed flying fast!
02:45If they just made both the rudders start to lift a little bit,
02:49because they're accelerating, and then went back to differential,
02:52that mechanism would kick in later.
02:54And therefore they're getting more riding moment of more power in their boat.
02:59Sure enough, we started using it for a few days sailing
03:02and were finding that we were able to maybe be a little faster.
03:08Oh, the Aussies are flying!
03:10What sort of witchcraft is this, Tom Slingsby?
03:13So I quietly went into the data people and the software engineers
03:18and said, hey, what I'm seeing with the data is we can get more riding moment,
03:24more rudder differential if we run extra rudder lift.
03:28Is that the case?
03:30He gives the rudder average about one degree back.
03:35Well, that's dangerous, huh?
03:36Because you're, like, really close to the water.
03:39OK, stand by.
03:41And I was trying to keep it as quiet as I could.
03:43I went to one person.
03:45They said, oh, we'll look into it, but we think you might be right.
03:49I remember saying, oh, like, I'd love to keep this between us
03:55because we did the hard work of discovering this.
03:58Is this kind of a loophole, you think?
04:01We'll put it in the email and we'll see what happens.
04:04There was a graph.
04:06I put the graph in the email at the end of the day,
04:08like every day, create a report, send it to the teams.
04:12Everybody should be able to know this.
04:14Send.
04:16David sent an email and showed that, basically,
04:21when you're sitting more pitch down,
04:23there is a loophole in the algorithm
04:25and you can have more power in the boat.
04:27And it showed that the Australians were sitting like that in Donwyn.
04:31Just before, I think, the grand final,
04:34it was not even a sailors-wide email.
04:37It was an all-of-sail-GP, pretty much, email.
04:41I think, yeah, the catering people, the hospitality workers
04:45got an email from the data guys saying,
04:47hey, Team Australia have found a bit of a loophole here
04:50and they're exploiting it and you guys should all be doing this.
04:54Gave away something that we wanted to keep hidden.
04:57The day before the grand final,
04:59Tommy goes to the vault, the data container,
05:02and he's like, dude, what?
05:04He just shared all my secrets.
05:06It was frustrating and I let them know about it
05:10and I said, look, that's unfair.
05:12It's totally unfair.
05:14I think Tom was right to be upset
05:16because right now we've got a data team
05:18that basically tells you every day,
05:21this team did well, this is why,
05:23this team was doing this, this was interesting.
05:26And teams can take that on board and learn from it.
05:30But I think that there's also an element of the game
05:33where it's up to the teams
05:36to know what questions to ask the data scientists
05:39that will then give them an advantage.
05:41It was all there for all the teams to see.
05:43If they looked into the data closely,
05:45what we were doing, it was all there in front of them.
05:47But we were like hoping that they wouldn't figure it out
05:49before the grand final and a million dollar race.
05:51But the data people decided to share it with everyone in the league.
05:54Sure enough, the very next day,
05:56every team was doing what we were doing.
06:01Some of the teams just can't quite grasp it today.
06:03They're all over the place.
06:05The skill level to run a lot of differential means
06:08that you're pushing the boat harder than you have before.
06:11So just because you have that information
06:13doesn't mean it translates onto the water.
06:15You've got to have the skill
06:16and you've got to have the confidence
06:17that you can pull it off to.
06:19Oh, it looks like even with that extra knowledge
06:21from the boat, the other teams just aren't on Australia's level.
06:25And it's the Roos who take the win here
06:27in the SailGP Season 2 Grand Final.
06:30We ended up winning that season
06:32and now every team does what we're doing now.
06:35It's just sort of part of the way you sail these boats now.
06:37We're trying to find the next thing now
06:39and it's truly not easy because the level's gotten really high
06:42and there doesn't seem to be many little loopholes
06:44that you can figure out anymore.
07:02when we're trying it out,
07:04what we're trying to make is so fascinating.
07:07We'll see the next Okilia.
07:09People knowing what we're trying to learn
07:13and as though,
07:14what do we need was trying to do ?
07:15Is trying to це все rubbish.
07:18We have our perfect way back.
07:20What do we need to do most things?
07:21We're trying to figure out what are we
07:22and we're trying to defend.
07:23You know,
07:24see if we're able to break down this zone?
07:26We're trying to dance and don't let it out.
