SailGP series set to add a second Australia race in Perth

SYDNEY (AP) - The SailGP international series will add another Australian race next year at the former America’s Cup venue near Perth on the west coast.

SailGP organizers on Thursday said the race in Western Australia state will be held at Fremantle, south of Perth, next January but have not announced the dates.

Fremantle hosted the 1987 America’s Cup race when the American challenger Stars & Stripes 87, sailed by Dennis Conner, won back the oldest trophy in sport that Australia had captured in historic fashion in 1983 off Newport, Rhode Island, breaking a then-American monopoly on it.

The Perth race will be followed in February by the seventh SailGP race on Sydney harbor. Britain won this year’s edition of the race in Sydney in February. The Sydney dates for 2026 also have not been announced.

Spain won the most recent SailGP race in San Francisco in March. This year there are 12 national teams racing.

The series features identical high-tech, high-speed 50-foot foiling catamarans. After Perth and Sydney next year, races are planned in Rio de Janeiro, Bermuda, New York, Halifax (Canada), Britain, France and Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.