NorthStar's Joe Glanfield on Coaching in SailGP's High-Speed Arena

At the beginning of 2025, SailGP moved the 12 team coaches off the water and into a Formula 1-style booth overlooking the racecourse. With access to a lot more live data than previously and with a crystal-clear comms link to speak directly to the boat the coaches have effectively become the teams’ seventh crew member.

In a previous story I quizzed Emirates Great Britain SailGP Team coach Rob Wilson to get his insight into the changes to the coaching role in SailGP. This time it is the turn of the Canadian North Star SailGP Team’s British coach, Joe Glanfield.

Crewing for Nick Rogers, Glanfield won silver medals in the 470 class in the Athens and Beijing Olympic Games, before moving into coaching where he helped British 470 pair Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark to a silver medal at London 2012. He is a SailGP veteran having previously coached early iterations of the US and Canadian squads.

Ask any of the 12 SailGP coaches and they will each likely give you a different opinion on what their role is with their team. For Glanfield it comes down to ‘two simple things’.