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The Grey NATO – 382 – SailGP Halifax With Rolex

Published on Thu, 02 Jul 2026 06:00:00 -0400

Synopsis

In episode 382 of The Grey NATO, hosts Jason Heaton and James Stacy discuss their upcoming Chicago event with Citizen at Forbidden Root (July event, currently at capacity with a waitlist), followed by their summer break schedule. They also announce the closing of the Ludwigson Explorer Collection in their shop on July 31st.

The main topic centers on James's recent trip to Halifax with Rolex for SailGP, a high-speed sailing championship featuring identical F-50 catamarans that can reach speeds over 100 km/h. James provides detailed insights into the sport's format, technology, and competitive nature, including interviews with renowned sailors Tom Slingsby (Australian team skipper and CEO) and Hannah Mills (Olympic gold medalist and Rolex testimony). The discussion highlights SailGP's accessibility as a spectator sport, its Formula One-like presentation, and Rolex's involvement in supporting both the sport and initiatives like the Athena Pathway program for women in sailing. The episode concludes with final notes: Jason recommends the "Atlantic Saints" Substack for thoughtful content on life, style, and adventure, while James suggests Josh Fenn's camping gear video for 2026.

Show Notes

Transcript

Speaker
Jason Heaton Hello and welcome to another episode of the Grey NATO, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 382, and it's proudly brought to you by the always growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support, and if you'd like to support the show, please visit thegrayNado.com for more details. My name is Jason Heaton, and I'm joined as ever by my friend and co-host James Stacy. James, are you staying cool there or uh is it as hot as it is here?
James Stacy I am not staying cool. Uh I just finished it was too hot to bother going for a run or uh even a walk outside, and I had a bunch of emails and expenses to do, and so I did it on the treadmill and goodness sakes, uh I used to be in my cool basement downstairs. Oh
Jason Heaton right. Yeah. Uh now I'm
James Stacy upstairs and yeah, it's it's uh even with the fan, it's plenty warm today. We're up over I think we're just up over thirty degrees uh Celsius, which is no laugh and matter, although not what not as bad as what's going on uh throughout parts of Europe right now.
Jason Heaton Yeah. You know, it's been it's been a busy week.
James Stacy The weekend went by very quickly, and it was one of those ones where we hadn't been at the cottage for a couple weeks, so we went up and there's just a ton of chores. And by the time everything was done, it was like, all right, let's pack the van and head home.
Jason Heaton So so yeah, hope hoping
James Stacy this weekend uh the weather cooperates again. It was lovely weather this past, but uh man, we've got some we've got some busy weeks coming up for sure. We're getting really close to Chicago.
Jason Heaton Yeah, we sure do. We've got uh this week and then next week um basically we we fly out and uh yeah, we've got a kind of a packed schedule. We were just going over it before we started recording here. And uh I mean it's all fun stuff. It it's gonna be great. We've got our event and we're doing some diving and meeting up with old friends and um sushi, of course. Nice
James Stacy little social weekend. Yeah, exactly. Right. We are doing an event with citizen at Forbidden Root. The RSVP is currently full. That said, we are running a wait list uh and we simply ask that if you're wanting to come to the event, it's seven to nine on the Friday night. Uh but join the wait list and the other side that we would ask is if you're into the event and can't make it or decide you don't want to come or whatever, please just render your uh like cancel your RSVP so that the uh the ticket goes back into the pool and we can get as many people there as possible. But we are at absolute maximum capacity uh for the number of people that uh Forbidden Root can accept for an event. Um so uh if uh if we end up with a uh sizable wait list, we will have to maybe look into other options next year. Uh but it is very difficult to predict these sorts of things. Uh yeah, so uh very much looking forward to that um and hoping to see uh many of you listening now uh at that event in uh just a couple weeks' time.
Jason Heaton Yeah, it's looking like a sizable crowd. It's gonna be just a packed space and uh, you know, just I can imagine all the the chatter and the fun conversations and the great watches and that sort of thing. It'll be great. And you and you and I fly in earlier that day and we're actually doing our little sushi meetup before that. So there will be food at our event with uh Citizen, but um James and I might be stuffed full of sushi uh so
James Stacy stuffed to the fo Yeah we're our our semi well it's now annual because we do it in Toronto as well.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Uh our now annual or some
James Stacy sort of annual or maybe even more than annual uh sushi dinner, which I very much look forward to. Uh nice time to catch up with you. And uh and yeah, huge thank you to Citizen for partnering with with us on the event. I think it's going to be incredible. And we'll certainly have a report from the show, which brings us to our summer breaks. So we will have an episode that comes out on the 16th talking all about our weekend in Chicago. And then after that, we're taking a couple weeks off. So there'll be no episode uh July twenty third or thirtieth, and then we will be back August sixth.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I mean we I I just can't when when you say the word August, I just I just shudder because I I just can't believe that um we're already talking about August and and you know by the time we're back from Chicago it'll be well into July. So I mean try not to get depressed. It summer's going well so far and we've had you know, good weather and I' hadve a lot of fun, but uh it just it goes away too fast every year.
James Stacy It just blows by for sure. In
Jason Heaton other news, uh we we suddenly realized this morning that we've had the Ludwigson Explorer collection in the TGN shop. This is a set of gosh, a little of everything. We've had uh you know t-shirts and caps and mugs um and some uh some posters and jigsaw puzzles and that sort of thing up there for for quite some time. And it's time to wind it down. So if you're interested in picking up anything from that collection that was designed by our good buddy Matt Ludwigson,
James Stacy showed up, Matt. Yeah, such a great
Jason Heaton uh great set of designs that he did for us, and those have been quite popular. Um, we will be turning those off uh come July 31st. They were kind of intended as a you know kind of first half of the year into summer sort of themed thing. Get out and explore, build, build a campfire, um, do some diving, whatever you're gonna do. And it's time to wrap that up. So those will be available in the shop until July 31st and then no more. So get them while you can. And then we've got a few ideas for for later in the year. Nothing concrete yet, but sta uhy tuned. Uh there will be more stuff coming in a few months. But uh for now, keep an eye on the shop and uh get that Ludwigson Explorer collection stuff uh if you want it.
James Stacy Awesome. Yeah, good stuff. All right. Yeah. So how's your week been uh since we chatted last?
Jason Heaton Yeah, it's been busy. I mean I've had a social week. I mean a social weekend. We had a kind of a wedding celebration on Saturday kind of at a horse farm. It was kind of out in the countryside. It was uh quite quite pleasant. Um and then uh yeah met some friends for dinner on Friday night. And so yeah, I mean more social than than an introvert like me uh is is accustomed to, but it's it's been great. Um summer kind of fills up that way. You know, you end up sitting outside a lot more and having cocktails or you know, grilling and that sort of stuff. So uh it's all good. And then it's been it's been hot here. And so I've been trying to you know get in the water when I can. I've I've been still training for that open water swim event that I've got on August first. And uh I was out last Friday morning and I managed to do 90 minutes straight swimming, which is um a little shy of two miles, which keep puts me on schedule for for the event, which is a two mile swim. So I'll I'll go back go back out there uh later this week. It's just down the road here. There's a lake, um which uh is one of the great things about Minneapolis and the the parks parks board here does a nice job with setting buoys out across the lake and having lifeguards on paddle boards to keep an eye on swimmers and it's uh a really well organized thing so um taking advantage of that and then uh yeah, it looks like both you and I are into season two of the agency.
James Stacy Man, yeah, I'd uh I mean definitely no spoilers, we would never do anything like that, but I'm really enjoying it. I'm kind of savoring
Jason Heaton it. Um I you know, this time
James Stacy of year I also find like by the time I shut down at the end of the day, it's nine or ten and I just go to
Jason Heaton sleep. Um so like last night I
James Stacy I had all intention of uh of watching something, and I sat down, I read a little bit of uh rendezvous with Rama I'm still working through, and uh and then I was like, uh I think I'll just go to sleep, and and I went to bed instead. But I'm absolutely loving it. Uh I I would say if you like the first season, you'll really enjoy the second. It it kind of starts with its foot on the gas as well, which is cool.
Jason Heaton Yeah, there's no drop-off. I I was really a little bit nervous. Um, so often follow-up seasons just kind of lack the the zip of of season ones, um, if you will. Yeah, they set
James Stacy up some good stuff at the end of the first one.
Jason Heaton Yeah, yeah,. No it's uh it's great so far. And I'm just I'm I'm just marveling at how great the casting is in this show. It's so tight. All the same characters are back in season two. You have Jeffrey Wright and Richard Gere, you know and they're given
James Stacy Richard Gears some more lines this year, or this season, which is nice.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. So I just finished um episode three last night, so I'm uh I'm I'm into it. But like you, I'm
James Stacy gonna I'm not gonna
Jason Heaton go crazy. So it's uh definitely
James Stacy been enjoying it so far. It's great. Yeah, right. And then other than that, I was down in New York City last week uh for a variety of things to finish up some VO for a project we're working on, went to the launch of a new Leica, the SL3P. Very, very cool. I shoot an SL2, which I like very much. And this is kind of the uh definitely the highest evolution of that form currently. Um then we also did the Hodinky Happy Hour. So we had it at uh a bar nearby and several TGN guys and gals showed up. So a big thank you to those who came out and held us down for that event. It was a good turnout um and probably a good format for future ones. Uh the one thing I did want to make a note of, um, and it's just we'll call this a little bit of podcast parenting. Uh when it comes to the Hodinki hour happy hour, you do not need to message me. You do not need to message people on the Hodinky staff. You don't need to leave comments on the site. Every single one will have an RSVP. It will be posted on the site. It'll be posted on social. You won't have you won't just happen to miss one. We'll make sure that we uh we do our normal promotional round. Please just stay tuned to the site and to the to the Instagram, whichever version you prefer. That's where we will share that news. And none of these are like secret events. They're posted about a week before. We are currently in planning to do one uh towards the end of July. Uh but just stay tuned to the site. Uh it doesn't require any two-way communication. We will announce as soon as we have all the details in the RSVPs open.
Jason Heaton Cool. Yeah, I'm glad those are going well. Seem to be well attended. And boy, you're you're keeping busy in the social scene, aren't you?
James Stacy I just think that so much of the internet is an unkind, unwelcoming, or simply very noisy place. I feel very strongly that at least at a personal level, that the more you can be face to face with
Jason Heaton people, um, the better
James Stacy uh these sorts of things can be for uh for everyone involved. And it was it was always my goal uh when when I I got the chance to take over leading, you know, an element of Hodinky um to do as many sort of face to face casual events as possible.
Jason Heaton Yeah, nice. Besides that, yeah, like I said,
James Stacy it was up at the cottage very uh for you know day and a half uh this weekend. Set up my mosquito dunks. I just I can't tell you how bad the mosquitoes are this year.
Jason Heaton Uh they're chewing through my kids, my
James Stacy my you know not quite one year old son was just covered in bites. So I yeah, if you if I'll put it in the show notes, I think I have in the past, but I was able apparently there's been a run on them and they're a lot harder to buy now. Um but we bought a a package of these mosquito dunks that you can use you can kind of set up like buckets of water and grass clippings and sticks and stuff. And then anything that's bred in that water will never actually hatch. So you can disrupt the breeding cycle is the goal. But look, speaking of water, we've got a whole sort of main topic devoted to something I did a couple of weeks ago. Uh before we get to that, you want to do a little bit of wrist check?
Jason Heaton Yeah, it looks like we both came proper for the uh subject of this episode. Um I have my I'm wearing my submariner, my Rolex. I've had this on for the past two weeks since I got back from the trip to DC with National Geographic and Rolex. And you know, I more than anything, um, it's kind of the one watch that I still keep on a bracelet and when it's this kind of hot and sticky as it's been here, it's just the most comfortable thing. I keep it, you know, slightly loose and you can just adjust the micro adjust with a little toothpick or whatever and and and make it fit just right. It's just kind of loose and cool and dries fast and doesn't hold sweat. So uh that's kind of kind of the main reason as as well as the fact it's just uh such a comfortable great watch.
James Stacy Yeah, it it is an absolutely great one and I and I do think it is it when it's this hot, it is kind of a bracelet vibe.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I uh I was down in New York
James Stacy and I picked up my Pelgos, which had been down there for some filming and nice to be reunited. Uh I didn't realize how much I missed that watch until I didn't have it for a month.
Jason Heaton Oh, sure. And I've been wearing it pretty constantly
James Stacy for the last week or so. But I put it on the rubber when I got back to the to to take it up to I was like, Oh, I'll on the rubber, take it up to codge. I think it lasted on the rubber for about six
Jason Heaton hours. But for
James Stacy this episode, I am wearing my Explorer 2, my 16570. Uh, and obviously that's just to stay on topic with a watch that I wore when I went to Halifax with Rolex for the sale GP event a couple of weeks ago. And yeah, if if you want to, we can dive into Sale GP. Jason, I actually don't know how much you know about this sport. You might already know a fair bit. Um, but I'm gonna try and walk people through kind of what the sport is, what I found interesting about it. You know, we weren't given one-on-one interviews with a couple really incredible testimonies that were there. We kind of had group interviews. So I have a couple short audio clips that I did my best uh that we can get into in a moment. We spoke with um some just exceptionally cool people um but it was in a big room and nobody was mic'd or that sort of thing. So I just have the audio recording, which I I think turned out good enough to listen to.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Um, but just a couple of short clips
James Stacy will also fill in. Uh Jason, I guess to start, like if we started the really at the basics, do you know much about the sport in general?
Jason Heaton Well, I mean, I from what I've seen and read about it, looks like it was kind of an offshoot or or kind of a evolution of uh America's Cup being done kind of in in a different, slightly different way, a little more uh accessible way than America's Cup and more regularly as well. I mean the boats look very similar. Um but that that's kind of and I've had some experience with America's Cup boats um in the past. Um but no I don't know really s anything specific about CLGP. So yeah, tell us how it works.
James Stacy Yeah, so sail GP the idea is stadium racing. So it's it's sailing racing formula series. Every boat is identical. There's not a single like real setting that you can change that wouldn't be reflected on any of the other boats. The boats are supported by the series and the teams get the boats from the series.
Jason Heaton Oh, okay. And that's how that works. And so
James Stacy it's an annual international sailing championship. It's called the Rolex Sail GP Championship. They were one of the original, if not the original sponsor, Rolex. And the boats are called F-50s. They are 50 feet long. They are formula boats. There are, I'll get into a few other details for that in a moment. It was founded by uh Russell Coots, it's an Olympic gold medalist, uh Kiwi Sailor, three-time America's Cup Skipper, and the American tech billionaire Larry Ellison. Um, and so they officially founded the series in 2017 is when they began developing. Uh, they wanted six identical boats. Um, and they used a team of over a hundred engineers and technicians to build this boat in New Zealand. That's the F-50. In 2018, Sale GP is founded and launches in uh the UK as a local local team, and the first event starts in February of 2019. So it's very new as far as these things go. Obviously, if you kick off a sport in 2019,
Jason Heaton yeah, that's tough. You're really not seeing its
James Stacy growth until the last couple of years. That's some tough timing.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Of course. So 2020 was the
James Stacy second season. Um, and that's where you started to see additional teams uh join. And basically teams are based on uh a country. Uh so there's a New Zealand team, there's an Australia team, there's a Canada team, there's a Switzerland team, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So right now I believe they're up to 13, um, and they're expanding it next year. Just to give you a little bit of the tech specs, uh, the F-50 is a catamaran, so it's a double hull with like a netting in the center. You have three different uh wing s configurations. And again, it's not like tire choices where it's part of the strategy. The league, the the the operators of sail GP the day before set what wing the boats will be using.
Jason Heaton Oh. And then the wings are
James Stacy fitted as the boats are put into the water for the racing that day. Aaron Powell
Jason Heaton And and before you move on, I'm just uh just to clarify that by wing you're you're talking about what used to be considered a sail.
James Stacy Right. These are but these are hard foiled. They are like a plane wing that points straight up. They have a leading sail. But the main thrust of the of the boat comes from what's a wing, which is a large carbon fiber system. Uh eighteen, twenty-four, or twenty-nine meters, the larger the wing is when you have less and less wind. They will fly at speed. Currently with titanium foils, they they fly at about ninety two hundred record something like a hundred and three kilometers an hour.
Jason Heaton Jeez. So that puts you in in the neighborhood
James Stacy of fifty knots, I believe. Wow. Um they fly about one point four meters above the water max. Uh, and then then you get into some of the crazy stuff. Every boat has two live streams in terms of video, over seventeen hundred data channels, a hundred and twenty-five sensors. So anything that's happening on any of the boats is less than two tenths of a second from HQ. So anytime that a team does something that's new, all the other teams know about it by the next
Jason Heaton day. They can all review
James Stacy each other's tapes. It's like the most competitive sport I've ever come across. It's nothing like there's nothing like what's going on in F1 where you have uh wing developments, where you have uh, you know, uh if there's an update, everybody gets the update.
Jason Heaton Right. Like if they change the hull, if they change the
James Stacy software, if they change anything, that goes to all the boats. It's a true formula series.
Jason Heaton Yeah. So it's super competitive.
James Stacy And uh and yeah, it's uh it's it's I've haven't really experienced anything like it, but the goal, the the outright goal is nation versus nation competition designed from the ground up to be broadcast friendly, very close to the shore, and as fast as that you can go.
Jason Heaton Yeah. So the only reason the bones don't
James Stacy go faster is currently they cavitate at about ninety KPH. So the water around the foil essentially boils
Jason Heaton and causes a ton of turbulence. So when
James Stacy they're going really fast, they're right on the edge of crashing..
Jason Heaton Wow Because the boat's moving around a bunch. Yeah.
James Stacy In Halifax, we did not see those types of speeds. They just didn't have the wind for it. They didn't have the conditions. Um and it's considered a fairly difficult race in Halifax. They're they're in the in the harbor there between the city and then the Dartmouth side. I would say at times, I mean there's photos from that'll be in my story for Hodenkey where it looks like the boats are interior to the piers. That's more of an optical illusion, but they are going right by. Like there's there's whole sections where if you were in the grandstands or or you know we're we're in like a box with Rolex right on the water, you almost don't need uh a camp. Like you you could just watch them. You can watch them move their hands. They go right by
Jason Heaton on these boats and they make an incredible sound
James Stacy when they do it. Yeah, so like I said, the uh the boats can do so in ten knots of wind, they can do seventy kilometers an hour. So like it's it they're they're very fast, two and a half tons with a wing.
Jason Heaton Wow. So they weigh nothing. Yeah. For such
James Stacy a big structure. Well actually one question
Jason Heaton I have about the boat is um, you know, what I remember was a a I don't know if it was the last edition of the American the the crew members actually were like on the on the hulls they actually had fitted those sort of uh um they were almost like bicycles, you know, they would actually pedal with their legs to kind of uh power power the hydraulic systems um instead of using hand winches just because the legs are more powerful and they would have these lines of crew members kind of hunched down and then they would race across as they were attacking and jiving, they would race across to the opposite hull and then jump on these basically stationary bicycles and pedal pedal pedal. Is that not the case with these? There uh it's it mo it's all hand winching and that sort of thing on these that that you could see?
James Stacy I believe it's hand winching. Yeah, yeah.' Thats that's what I was able to see. And and when I was on the boat, uh I went on the Swiss boat uh briefly while it was in the water um and got to see some of the controls and where everybody sits. I didn't see anything that looked like you could pedal it unless I'm very confused about the seating position. Um, so they run five to six sailors, but they can run I think as little as three, depending on the conditions. So if they want if they want less like if the wind is that poor, they can run with as little as three people. But again, it's not like you get to pick one team to another. You're given this is how the race will run. And a a race itself of which you could have three to six in a day in an afternoon, or we did in ca in Halifax, all depends on the conditions. So they have a two minute starting phase where much like with all the sort of yachting starts, much like why we have a yacht timer, you would have a two-minute sort of phase where they're really trying to pace and find some wind so that they shoot right across the line at the final signal to to for the start of the race, and then they have to extend out to you, know, there's kind of four corners, and you have to go to a corner, go to another corner, go to a corner, go to another corner. And then while the boats are traveling to that fourth turn, these two little they're they're motorized, so they're they're remotely controlled, but these buoys just drive out on their own and form the the it's hilarious. It's so cute. And they're the you see them motoring around, it's how they set up the whole course. So it's all adjustable based on conditions, and they will and just they will adjust the sport to make it as watchable as possible, is essentially what we were told by the people in charge. So because of the conditions and a recent big crash that happened in the sport that took three boats out. And it takes them, I think they're down to nine months to build a boat.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. So it changes the
James Stacy whole season if you crash, essentially. If you need that that being if you need a whole new boat, but they can adjust and and so they dropped the racing to nine minutes uh for a heat, and then they were also able to go from th instead of running thirteen boats at the same time, which I would have loved to have seen. They did split fields, a six and a seven.
Jason Heaton Yeah. So you got way more racing to watch,
James Stacy which is fun. But I would have liked to have seen them run all 13 at the same time. And we got that impression from the the sailors that we spoke with. In a few minutes I'll play a a couple clips from Tom Slingsby. He's like one of the greatest sailors alive. He he's the the CEO and the team captain and you know the guy essentially in charge of the bond's Flying Ruse Sale GP team, which is now at least partially owned by Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds.
Jason Heaton Huh. Wow. Um,
James Stacy so he's a three-time Rolex World Sailor of the Year. Okay. Amazing, right? And uh and he sat down and spoke with us for probably like 45, 50 minutes. And I don't know that I've like I I've met I've met some athletes in my time, right? This guy is one of the most competitive people, and he's he's just seems very clear and intent on like I you know we need to win, and you can you can understand why he's very good at things,
Jason Heaton yeah. But yeah, he uh he has won
James Stacy three consecutive laser dinghy world champions, won gold in the laser class in twenty twelve uh at the Olympic Games. Uh he has served as a strategist for Oracle Team USA in the twenty thirteen America's Cup, uh, which is when they came back from eight to one and won nine eight. Uh multiple championships across multiple sailing uh scenarios. Uh world sailing male sailor of the year in twenty ten and twenty twenty-one. Uh and he was the Australian sailor, uh male sailor of the year five times. Wow. I don't know. There's nothing left for this guy to race uh for sure. Um and he's yeah, he's currently the skipper and CEO of uh the Australia sale GP team. Um so I I'll I'll jump actually to the first clip which is which is him explaining kind of how he got into the sport. So let's jump to that clip here. Just a short one.
Tom Slingsby So I um I I I went through Olympic sailing. Um, as most young sailors, everyone sort of targets the Olympics and I did the two thousand and eight and two thousand twelve Olympics. Um with that I I I was pretty successful in two thousand and twelve and I got an offer to join an America's Cup team. And that America's Cup, I got a few offers, but the team I joined was Oracle Team USA with Russell Coots and Larry Ellison. And I did two uh America's Cup campaigns, two thousand thirteen, two thousand sixteen with them. And then I I'll never forget it, but we lost the two thousand sixteen America's Cup to Team New Zealand and I was standing on stage next to Larry Ellison and I I felt quite guilty. I was one of the managers in the team and I I said to him, I'm I'm really sorry, Larry, that we lost this. We shouldn't have lost it. We should have won this event. And he and Larry's hard line, I used to interact with him a lot back then, more so than now, but he he just said to me like that's okay, I actually I'm not upset at all. And I was like, That's not Larry Ellison, I know. And he says, I this gives me the chance to do something I've always wanted to do. Because uh the the joke with the Americans Cup is once you win it, if you are successful you can't get rid of it, you'll you're if you keep winning, you've got to defend it and do the next America's Cup and so on and so on. But he said, Now we've lost it, I can actually go and do something I wanna do, which is and then I and then he said I'll tell you more backstage. We went off stage and uh he said I want to start a new league, I want to start something with country versus country competition, I want uh multiple events all around the world and and I remember saying, Well if you do that, I'd love to be a part of it. And so six months later, I'm on a call with Larry and Russell, and we're coming up with the sort of foundational rules of the league. And yeah, I left the America's Cup that campaign and said, I'll I want to be part of this, Al GP journey. And so I joined I was the first person signed on to Cell GP um when they started.
Jason Heaton All right, that's cool. Um I mean you're right about his kind of competitive nature and it it just brings to mind like i i it's so funny how certain nationalities bring out these like consistently do so well on certain sports and it just seems like oh
James Stacy yeah the you know New Zealanders, the Kiwis
Jason Heaton and the Australians are just so good at at sailing. I mean, it's just it's just so interesting to me.
James Stacy Yeah, it was it was fascinating to hear him chat about that and to tell the story of like you can see that through line of the two guys behind the Oracle team in America's Cup just transition to doing this and take him with them.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And uh and I mean the sport has
James Stacy some some really big names attached to it. If you're a fan of sailing, this is it's it's a part of um of the thing. What I would add to the the overall part is if you like sports, especially if you like Formula One, this is very much presented in a similar fashion
Jason Heaton where it's a race weekend, it's in a new
James Stacy location. The the area is very much part of the equation, right? Just like it is in Formula One, whether it's a road course or a a circuit or or whatever, like you have you know all the conditions that are happening. It's if you're a Formula One fan, you you you'll'll know what the temperatures were in Austria this past weekend on the track. You'll know uh whether or not they repaved any section since last year, all that sort of thing. And and I think they've made a sport here that's really, really probably best followed on your phone or on a monitor. Um, whenever I had no clue what was going on, just standing, you know, on a pier, I could look over at a screen and you go, Oh, okay, I can kind of see what's happening. Because the screen shows you which way the wind's going, which is something like if you're not a sailor, I don't know how you would know necessarily. And uh and also what each boat is doing. Because some of them, you know, if you think about it, they're they're doing essentially we'll call it to keep it simple, this isn't fully accurate, but they're doing like figure eights across a four-pointed
Jason Heaton course. Sure. So if
James Stacy you think that the wind is going a different direction than the boat ahead of you, you might split up, but you might come back into each other after you each make the turn. It's a fascinating thing to watch. And and I really the the one takeaway I would support is if any of this sounds interesting or fun, you you gotta check it out on your phone. It's
Jason Heaton free. Uh I downloaded
James Stacy the app and you you can watch the races. You can watch a ton of it on YouTube. It looks like if it some of it might be region locked based on TV deals in various like I saw some note online about Italy and stuff like that. I I can't comment on every location or locale, but it seemed like something very easy to watch and quite fun to follow and and pretty simple to do right on your phone. And the races aren't two and a half hours like they can be or longer for Formula One. It's uh it's 10, 12 minutes.
Jason Heaton It's always been a struggle for for sailing to kind of bring it to bring it to spectators and kind of make events. I mean, you know, having been to a couple of Volvo Ocean Race venues and America's Cup stuff, it's just they really try hard to make it friendly and appealing to novices and spectators. And it sounds like through technology and and really bringing the course in close to shore, they're getting closer to what what you know the the the overall vision is for for just bringing sailing to kind of the masses, so to speak. Was it was it well attended? I mean, be beyond kind of the press pool and the people you were
James Stacy packed. Was it really? Oh great. It was packed. Yeah. It like it felt like most of Halifax was against the water to watch it in some fashion or another.
Jason Heaton Wow. Um and you know, we we spoke in
James Stacy speaking with both people behind the program and and people from the like sailors from the boats. Um the sport is really just literally hitting kind of its second stride um in terms of you know their, opening a training facility, because right now you get almost no time on the boat. All the all the time practicing has to be even and
Jason Heaton fair. Nobody owns one
James Stacy of these boats. There's not a spare currently. So they'll have a spare down in like the I think it's in the Panama City Beach area in uh in Florida where teams will be able to actually have time uh on on a formula boat and that's also going to help them develop sailors. You know, it was one of the questions I had for Tom uh when we were chatting was, you know, how do you do you have to have like a baseball card roster in your mind of sailors that like have some of the skill set you need or might be needed by this sport and he because it feels like you need a lot of different capabilities. And I mean I w you know he got into the um and I I can play the second clip which is also just a short one. It's maybe maybe a minute. Here's here's Tom Slingsby again, just talking about what it is, how coordinated the effort is just to turn one of these boats.
Tom Slingsby And so all of a sudden I pick up the sheet half a second earlier than I would have if I said stand by and then he goes like this. And then we go into the maneuver and it and there's I think there's thirty-six different functions that need to happen whenever we change direction. Like I need to take the wing sheet, Goobs needs to cross the boat, he needs to get there. Jason needs to switch foils, he's on. The uh the grinder needs to change the jib setting, he needs to call the board going down in the lock. I need to press, I think it's six different buttons, for us to change direction. All these things, it's such a sort of uh ballet of different motions that need to happen all in perfect sync. And I think our team does it quicker than everyone else because we've sat together for so long and we understand each other better.
Jason Heaton Hmm. Wow. Thirty-six different functions. That's pretty incredible. Wow. I'm curious too. I mean, I'm sure you'll get to this, but like actually your time on the boat, like uh it he mentioned pushing buttons and yeah, you know, these these are so high tech um that that there's no illusion that like this is all you know hand winches and rope. This is this is actual um there's a lot of technology here like uh electronics yeah
James Stacy yeah it's a ton of it's a ton of data both both sides of the boat so you're constantly running everybody essentially has a leash and the leashes are stacked so you can't you kind of have to cross at a certain time if you're going from one fender, one hall, one pontoon to the other. And it that all depends on your role and what they're doing. If they're if you're setting up for another turn, um then they's actions like like Tom said, there's about 36 things that have to be done to turn the boat. And that requires an orchestration of at least three people, ideally six people, and quite a bit of speed to to kind of keep everything moving. Um, but in in his position, you know, you have a screen actually, there's there's some kind of just below your waist level i in the hull um that might give you some data about what's going on. And then there's another one that's a little bit more visible at the base of the wing that's that's playing certain data that you can test. And then there's not lines on the ground. It's like it's not like uh a racetrack. So you're constantly having to zigzag in and out of the wind, that's how you sail, but at the same time, mu be mindful of the course and be mindful of any other boat that might be around you. It's an incredible like I I was just kind of jaw dropped as I started to like really consider how much they're kind of doing and how much of it is done just so that people in the stands can watch it happen. Right? Because like if you know a normal say like a long distance sailing event they leave and then eventually somebody comes back and presumably they're the winner. They're the first one back.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And
James Stacy maybe there's a great documentary or or you know, maybe they maybe they had a GoPro or something and you get some moments from it. But this is this feels very tactile, very close to the shore.
Jason Heaton Very fun. You know, we we got to go over to
James Stacy the whole kind of tech area where they dry dock the boats at night, bring them out on a crane, attach the the sail, the wing, and then put them in the water, and then we were able to get on a boat with the Swiss team and actually kind of sit on the netting between the two and and get a sense of and I just I cannot imagine having gone sixty, seventy miles an hour in a boat a couple of times on you know glass as far as water goes. I cannot imagine doing it in a in windy conditions. Obviously they have to be windy because it's a sailboat. Um and and just the the level of like damage and toll that they can go on them. You know, I had one sailor walk me through all of their gear, which includes like spare air, because if they go down, they might be wrapped up in the boat, they might still be tethered.
Jason Heaton Oh sure to their line because
James Stacy if you uh basically if you fell especially if you fell into a foil that's going 100 kilometers an hour I don't you're not living so the the the tether' designs that you can't actually leave the boat. But of course if the if there's a big crash and you know just recently there was one where kind of one boat T boned another and broke a guy's legs.
Jason Heaton Wow. And then he was pinned in the hull
James Stacy underwater for some time. Yeah. So he was on spare air, and then the rescue divers are there in seconds handing him a of an absolute tank, getting him out of there. It's it's a really, really impressive thing. I I got really nerdy about, you know, we got to go into like the Oracle data center and they're pulling, I think he said like 30,000 pieces of data off the boat at any given one time, uh, that they're collecting and all of the other boats can see, all the other other teams can see immediately.
Jason Heaton Yeah. So it's all this super competitive
James Stacy uh sort of stuff. But really it it ultimately came down to like, you know, it's Rolex. We had all the access you could imagine.
Jason Heaton Yeah. So for the start of the
James Stacy first race, I was on a chase boat. I was a hundred meters away from the boat.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Well uh perhaps. And there wasn't
James Stacy it wasn't a very exciting race. There wasn't that much wind the first day. Uh it it picked up and got quite a bit more interesting the second day. Um, you know, I'll I'll have more of those sorts of details and that kind of stuff in in the eventual hodinky story, but a a really fascinating um a really fascinating weekend. Uh Halifax is an incredible city. Had a great time. Really beautiful. Went up to the Citadel. Uh had a good walk around. Good, good robot. Uh brewery is uh is located in Halifax. So that's one that we're we're aware of. And then the other uh testimony that we got to speak with was Hannah Mills, who's considered one of the greatest female uh sailors in history. Uh podium finishes at three consecutive Olympics, twice named the Rolex Sailor of the Year, uh, 2016 and 2021, multiple world titles. We got to sit down with her. It it's difficult to express how much she's doing at any given one time. Um, she's obviously uh a Rolex testimony and she has uh kind of played uh an instrumental role in building the pathwork to bring women into sailing. This is one of the only sports in the world where um like in in Sale GP where women and men can compete directly on the same field, there's a woman on uh there's at least one woman on each sale GP team.
Jason Heaton Wow, that's really cool. And uh and
James Stacy so th there's this Athena Pathway program. Uh I'll I'll include more links in the show notes and we'll have more about her in in the story for Hodinky. Uh but she has uh a really it she had I I asked her just quickly what what it was like kind of working with Rolex, because you kind of wonder, like they were first into sale GP and then they've been pretty long-term supporters. I mean, it you don't commonly hear of people no longer being Rolex testimonies, like being cut,
Jason Heaton yeah, yeah, or dropped, right? Um,
James Stacy but you can definitely understand why people like Hannah or or Tom represent something really special, the the true professionals in a sport. But let's get to this very uh short clip with uh Hannah Mills. I had a lot of trouble with the audio um in this one, the room wasn't quite great. This is just off my phone, as were the ones from Tom. I did my best. It's going to sound a little robotic. My apologies. And Hannah, if you ever hear this clip, I'm sorry for what the AI did to your voice on this one, but I did really like your sort of straightforward response as to what it's like working with Rolex and and how involved they are both in the sailing side and then in these other um sort of either philanthropic or supportive projects that she has, like uh the Athena Pathway program.
Unknown And then as a Rolex testimony, how does that relationship factor into all of these initiatives? Yeah, Rolex um
James Stacy have been a pretty incredible partner personally, but also with particularly with Cleaner Pathway, I think the buy-in to the
Tom Slingsby youth and the women and the opportunity and
Jason Heaton creating more opportunities within the sport
James Stacy is something we really share. And
Unknown they've been so supportive since
James Stacy they were the first partner that came on board with Athena Partha really allowed us to kick off. And when you have a genuine partner that cares about what you care about, then I think what you can achieve is just a lot greater. Um and that's really been the case with Rolex and Athena Parkway.
Unknown And when you started with that, had did you already have a a relationship with Rolex and it was able to extend it
James Stacy into Athena? No, it was actually both in around at the
Tom Slingsby same time. Oh wow. Yeah so I'd just finished my
James Stacy Olympic saline. I just won the Rolex sailing of the year. The women's cup would be a very cleaner pathway and we were kind of in the making dove and so it all it all came about together, which was really nice. Yeah.
Jason Heaton That's great. Yeah. She she sounds great. And and I'm curious, um, you know, as a Rolex testimony, like what I'm guessing yachtmaster on on on a rubber strap maybe for for both both these folks?
James Stacy Yep. She was she was wearing uh a yacht master on the rubber strap uh uh Ever Rose uhcht Yamaster, which looked great, and Tom was wearing the the full size, the forty-two millimeter uh Yacht Master in titanium on the bracelet.
Jason Heaton Wow, fantastic. Both uh I mean both are the
James Stacy right things, right? And then yeah, just just to fill in the that final blank, Athena Pathway is a British sailing team created in twenty twenty two, directly designed to compete uh for youth and women's editions of the America's Cup, which started in twenty twenty four. And that came from Hannah Mills and uh Sir Ben Ainsley, uh two huge names in the sport. The easy thing to come from all this, and I know I've been rambling for a little while, I had a really good time. It felt very F1 like, um, but the level of access was much higher. Um I don't know if it would be the same way in other places. Um, but because you have to do it on water, it's not quite the same as a track that's, you know, an hour outside of Austin, for example.
Jason Heaton Yeah. There's there's it felt
James Stacy like it was very drawn fully into the city and really involved the city itself. So you know, I even met a couple of people. I was getting some photos um from up on this big uh area next to our hotel, uh in um in sort of the waterside part of uh Halifax there and met some people who had no clue this was happening. They just came in from Michigan for a weekend. They'd never been to Halifax and like this is amazing. So that they they were going to find some good place to sit and watch parts of it. And uh yeah, I think it's one of those things where if if it sounds interesting and you're not already on it, hit the app on your phone and check it out. Otherwise, see if it's and you know, coming to a city anywhere near you. I think it's a blast, even if you only got to see some of the racing on on a screen from uh, you know, from maybe a bar or restaurant nearby. I I really enjoyed it. It was a a very cool weekend and neat to see Rolex in the ways that they expand into these other things. And you start to go, like, why do you make the Yachtmaster at all? Let alone the new Yacht Master 2 and that sort of thing. And then you start to understand a little bit more the way that it's kind of hard-coded into what they're doing with uh with the money from all those watches.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Wow. That's great. And before you
James Stacy ask, I did not meet Ryan Reynolds or Hugh Jackman. I'm not against either, of course. Uh apparently they do come to races quite frequently and possibly were in Halifax. Um I I definitely had some people tell me they saw Ryan Gosling, which I can only assume is a a Ryan Reynolds mix up. I'm not sure. Canadian guys being Canadian guys.
Jason Heaton Yeah, right. Um but yeah it's uh it was it was
James Stacy super cool and and I don't know it it's it's meeting Tom and and Hannah was a lot like the other times that I've had a chance to meet you know like Tom Christianson the race car driver and other Rolex testimonies like that. It's just kind of fun to these people that are just absolutely dialed into this thing. And that's I don't know. That's one of those things that I still really appreciate about Rolex.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. That's great. I mean, two episodes back to back where we were kind of on trips with Rolex and and very different types of trips and places, but uh yeah, there's a certain level of understatement, I think, when it comes to their testimonies or their, you know, the people that they support. Um, I think it just sort of kind of trickles down from the brand ethos in general. I mean, Rolex is such a cliche, but the kind of stuff they choose to support and the people they bring on board are um you know, I'm not gonna say they're any better or worse, but it's just there's just a a a different level. the They always
James Stacy seem to have right people though. You know, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Jason Heaton It's not like there aren't other incredible sailors,
James Stacy but the people that they pick or or race car drivers or whatever.
Jason Heaton Yeah. But the people that pick, you know, like Hurley Haywood. Right. One of the
James Stacy coolest people I've ever met. Yeah. That makes sense. If I was a brand, I would want to work with a guy like Curley. And now that I've met Tom Slingsby and Hannah Mills, I I would want to work with them if I was Rolex or really any brand.
Jason Heaton They take the long view, I think, you know, with their with their choices of the people they support. I think they must make very considered choices and then think if we're gonna forge this relationship, we're gonna we're gonna kinda be in it for the long haul. You don't often hear about uh Rolex testimonies leaving and going to other brands. It's usually the other way around.
James Stacy Yeah. Yeah. I mean there's there's some notable ones that I'm not sure they're super happy about these days.
Jason Heaton Yeah, right. Um but that's pr perhaps
James Stacy a conversation for another time. I'm not here to poke uh undue fun at people, of course. Um but yeah, I I just thought this was a really fun event. Wanted to fill it in. I'll eventually be able to consolidate all of this into a story, I guess. It's a lot. Um I'll include Andy's story from last year he attended with um with Rolex in Geneva when they when they ran it on Lac Lamont and uh and that that can give you another kind of dig into even more of the business side of it. Yeah. Um but Andy did an incredible job. And that's kind of where setting the bar on my story is kind of difficult 'cause I've you know I've got to try and keep up with Andy and uh he did great with his story. So I'll include that as well. Hopefully it's not too much of a ramble. Um we don't often do back to back stories kind of informed by one brand's sort of aesthetic, but I I don't know, all of this felt very TGN adjacent to me, both uh yours uh last week with the uh explorers and photographers and divers and all that kind of stuff, and then uh this one yeah this week with some kind of high level sailing athletes.
Jason Heaton Yeah, definitely. Anyways,
James Stacy there you go. If you have any questions for us for either of these episodes, let us know on the Slack and we can get to 'em. But uh I figure it's about time for some final notes.
Jason Heaton Yeah, let's do it. Um so uh I've been following this uh I kind of popped up in social media I don't know a year or so ago, and then I started following his substack, and it's it's one called Atlantic Saints. Maybe you know those of you that are are listeners um have have seen this pop up as well and uh it's always been a little mysterious because I was never sure who was behind it. Um I I had a uh I guess a a a video chat with um with the guy who runs it yesterday um just to kind of catch up, he we we we've've been kind of trading messages for for quite some time for several months and just decided to chat because he has a mutual friend in David Cuncanon, um, who's been the subject of one of uh his his substack posts on Atlantic Saints and um it's kind of hard to describe, but if if you go to to check out the Substack, he describes it as an exercise in pondering life, art, faith, style, and all else worthy. And you know, he kind of dabbles in things like architecture, travel, there's some watch content, um, kind of personal philosophy. He interviews interesting people. It's a bit of a mix of I guess I would say like a Matt Huronic vibe with Concanon, throw in some hodinky and thousand yard style, kind of that sort of mix. Um it's uh yeah, it's it's always something interesting. And and the guy who runs it, I maybe he wants to remain anonymous because he hasn't really put his name out there, so I won't divulge it here. Um but uh it's it's a it's a good follow. I think um yeah I should check that one out.
James Stacy Yeah absolutely I mean I'm I'm seeing a uh love letter to the Peter Blake Seamaster 2254. So that's in
Tom Slingsby our zone for sure. A little Sid Mashburn.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Some Ploprof. Yeah. Some
James Stacy some great I see a Land Rover on here for sure. Yeah, this looks awesome.
Jason Heaton Uh new to me. Uh this is great. All right. What do you got?
James Stacy Yeah, mine uh you know. By the way, I know what you
Jason Heaton have because I watched this before we started and it's there's some super cool stuff in here. Isn't it? Yeah, I kinda you know,
James Stacy I've I've I've had Josh Fenn uh videos on final notes in the past. Usually it's like tech stuff. You know, he's recommending a few, you know, travel tech or whatever that's under fifty dollars or EDC things. Uh but he recently did a video that's just called Next Level Camping Gear for 2026. And look, all of these are uh you know suggesting things that you could buy. I'm just trying to keep up with camping gear. It feels like I dipped in pretty hard when I bought a bunch of stuff five, six, seven years ago. And then I've I have good stuff and I I've kind of dipped out and now uh now I jump back into one of these videos and I go, man, there's some really cool stuff in here. I I'm really now inflatable tent curious.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. Uh it it just looks really
James Stacy convenient, and you get some you get some ceiling,
Jason Heaton which I don't have in any of the tents that I own.
James Stacy Um, and of course my family's not getting smaller and uh and camping remains kind of on the on the horizon. Uh Sarah and I have kind of agreed that instead of getting rid of the Wrangler, which we're really not driving that much anymore, we're probably just going to turn it into like an overlanding vehicle.
Jason Heaton Oh, sure. But uh probably not
James Stacy go the full route of the the tent on top of it and and all the gear,
Jason Heaton but rather just a nice kind of sealed
James Stacy the way that you might think of a a big bin of camping gear.
Jason Heaton Yeah. In your garage. This would
James Stacy be a whole vehicle, which is like, you know, we we could take it somewhere if we want to. Um so that's kind of on the horizon. So I've been starting to dip back into sort of like what what's going on in the camping scene these days? What's the new the new sort of stuff?
Jason Heaton And you know, I got a chance a little while ago because I
James Stacy I bought you a few things for Christmas this past year that that kind of fit into that category.
Jason Heaton Yeah. But I didn't go as far as stuff like
James Stacy yeah, these inflatable tents look really cool and and you know, some some yeah, so just some useful
Jason Heaton memo chair, that kind of rocking chair.
James Stacy Doesn't that chair look great? I mean I'm sure I would take it. Yeah, it almost put it
Jason Heaton in the backyard or just, you know, just kind of a cottage. Totally. Yeah. Yeah.
James Stacy Yeah. Again, I think a lot of this, like from the perspective of the videos, this is not like backpacking.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Right. This is um this is car camping
James Stacy for sure. Uh or overlanding somewhere, or or maybe somewhere kind of in between the
Jason Heaton two. Uh but yeah, I like Josh's videos.
James Stacy Um, obviously a lot of them are about consumerism, which is like up to you if it matters. I just like staying on top of things. I don't have to buy any of this to enjoy it. Um but there's some good bits in there. I like the way he shoots it. I like that his presentation's kind of calm and measured uh for the most part and most of it's filmed really nicely. Uh so yeah I'm I'm a fan of his channel. I've I've been subscribed for a little while. But yeah, the I don't know why th this this time of year comes around and I go like, uh, you know, c yeah, I have the cottage, of course, but there's lots of property there that I could put a tent on and and enjoy a different type of weekend, maybe maybe with even more mosquitoes. I don't know.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Oh boy. A little closer to the swamp
James Stacy just uh just next to us. Yeah,
Jason Heaton right. But yeah, it was a good one. All right. Good stuff. Well, this was a fun episode. Felt very TGN uh risk check and the and the whole bit, camping and sailing and good stuff. All right.
James Stacy I promise the the next one will be uh uh somewhat less Rolex than the last two.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I'm promise, no Rolex. It's still a
James Stacy watch podcast, but uh but I feel like we we got some good coverage out of the last couple of of uh of bits of travel and that sort of thing and then still looking forward to uh wind up which again surprisingly is like less than two weeks away
Jason Heaton so we're getting there pretty pretty quickly
James Stacy um but that's gonna be a great episode as well. Look, as always, thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to subscribe to the show notes, get into the comments for each episode, or even consider supporting the show directly, which would get you onto the TGN Slack, or maybe even score you a new TGN signed NATO, please visit thegreynado.com. Music Throat is siesta by Jazz are via the free music archive.
Jason Heaton And we leave you with this quote from John A. Shedd, who said, a ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.