SailGP Renews ePropulsion Partnership to Power Electric Support Fleet

SailGP confirmed a renewed partnership with electric outboard manufacturer ePropulsion on April 1, extending the company's role as the league's official electric outboard supplier through the 2026 season and beyond.

The deal keeps ePropulsion units, including the Spirit 2 outboard, running the chase boats, umpire vessels and safety craft that underpin every F50 event. That operational fleet carries real environmental weight: support craft historically account for a nontrivial share of race-event emissions, and swapping them to electric propulsion directly reduces both the carbon footprint and the noise load inside race harbours. SailGP and ePropulsion have been working that problem together since 2021.

Iona Neilson, SailGP Head of Impact, framed the renewal as a proof-of-concept as much as a supply agreement. "Sport has a powerful role to play in accelerating real-world impact," Neilson said. "Our partnership with ePropulsion allows us to demonstrate how electric propulsion can perform reliably in demanding environments, all while reducing emissions across our operations."

ePropulsion co-founder and CEO Danny Tao pointed to the progress already banked from five seasons of event-level use. "SailGP continues to set the standard for high-performance, purpose-driven sport, and we're proud to be continuing our partnership. Working together has already delivered meaningful progress, and we're excited to build on that momentum."

The practical test ahead is immediate. The Enel Rio Sail Grand Prix runs April 11-12, meaning ePropulsion's units will face the full complexity of international event logistics within days of the renewal announcement. Managing battery charging infrastructure, spare capacity and battery lifecycle across a globe-spanning race calendar is the kind of stress that commercial marine operators watch closely before committing to their own electric transitions.

For the broader catamaran world, the partnership's significance sits in that demonstration value. The F50s themselves are bespoke foiling platforms, but the support fleet is functionally identical to the craft running at charter operations, ferry terminals and club-race days everywhere. Five seasons of high-pressure SailGP deployment represents a genuine operational dataset, and the league's continued investment in ePropulsion hardware suggests the numbers hold up.