Teams from 10 counties are in Halifax this week for the Rockwool Canada Sail Grand Prix.
Canada SailGP team member Annie Haeger is the only woman racing with the team during the event.
The former Olympic athlete is originally from the United States and now calls Vancouver home.
Haeger joined the Canadian team ahead of the 2023 France Sail Grand Prix in Saint-Tropez as a strategist.
She says racing in front of fans at home in Canada this weekend is going to be “everything.”
“It feels like Christmas morning,” she told CTV’s Jonathan MacInnis during an interview Thursday.
“We’ve been waiting for this event, the points are tight, the season is coming to a close, and just to have the home support is going to really help us and motivate us to perform well.”
People have even been out to watch the team during their practices in the Halifax Harbour this week.
Haeger says it has been “amazing” to see the support.
“We were out training (Wednesday) and there were boats out already, coming up as close as they could really trying to take it all in,” she says.
“To know as soon as we launched the boat and got out on the water, we have that obviously huge maple leaf on our sail, we’ve got Canada there, and we have the hometown support. We can feel it as soon as we arrive in the airport as well.”
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A Rockstar Breakfast was held Thursday as part of SailGP Halifax featuring Haeger, Swiss sailor Laurane Mettraux and Katja Salskov-Iversen of Denmark.
The event was an opportunity for local female sailors to ask the athletes questions and Haeger admits she got “a little bit emotional” during the panel.
“I have a daughter, and just to see the grassroots support and the huge influx of female sailors that are getting introduced to foiling in Canada has been absolutely awe-inspiring and I know a couple of those girls in there will be vying for my job in a couple of years,” she says.
“So bring on the competition! A rising tide raises all boats and (I’m) excited for the future.”
Haeger says when she quit Olympic sailing she didn’t see a way forward as a woman in the sport. She then joined the SailGP Women’s Pathway program, which has a goal of gender equity in sailing.
“I think having a vision of what could be will continue to open up doors for women and generations to come, so being able to speak to them, hopefully inspire them, hopefully say this is achievable and there’s many more opportunities to come has been inspiring and very humbling as well,” she says.
Haeger calls the Halifax Harbour setting for this weekend’s races “really unique” compared to previous SailGP race locations because it is so condensed.
“We have the Halifax side and Dartmouth side, there’s so many opportunities to watch from, it’s not often for us that we’re in a natural harbour, there’s only a few venues that are like that, so we’re going to have support from all sides,” she says.
Haeger also expects shifty and dynamic sailing conditions out on the water.
“We’re really looking forward to it, a lot of us come from dingy backgrounds and so we’re naturally playing their shifts being in tricky conditions – we’re ready for it.”
