Lyttelton Harbour will play host to SailGP action on January 29-30 next year for the penultimate round of the Grand Prix season. The grand final of the series (in its second season) will be in San Francisco in March 2022.

The Christchurch regatta will be the first time a SailGP Grand Prix event is held in New Zealand. It will feature eight national teams, including the league’s newest entry – New Zealand – led by co-CEOs Peter Burling and Blair Tuke, both reigning Olympic and America’s Cup champions.

“We are proud to represent New Zealand,” says Burling, “and there is nothing better than competing on home waters supported by our country’s sports fans, so we are stoked to bring the global event to Christchurch.

“We can’t wait to start racing in SailGP and sharing our Live Ocean conservation message along the way, which we know fans here in New Zealand and around the world will get behind.”

The fan-centric, inshore racing takes place in some of the world’s most iconic harbours and offers the sport’s largest monetary prize of $1 million. Rival national teams battle it out in identical supercharged F50 catamarans, engineered for intense racing at speeds exceeding 50 knots.

In Season 1, SailGP events were broadcast to a total global audience of 256 million.