Tuesday, 19 August, 2025 UTC
Summary
SailGP RaceScape XR delivers an expansive volumetric dashboard for Apple Vision Pro owners to learn more about competitive high-speed sail racing.
The app centers on a large representation of the live course in the waters where a fleet of catamarans is operated at high speeds by nation-based sailing teams. The vessels are all identical with dual hulls that rise out of the water as they race and, for fans of the sport, tickets to feel the sun on your skin and wind on your face at one of SailGP's Grand Prix races can cost hundreds of dollars apiece for a waterfront seat.
After trying the app, I'm not likely to go spend $250 to attend the New York Sail Grand Prix in 2026 when it comes to town. That said, in just about 20 minutes of watching races in both VR and mixed reality with RaceScape, I've gained an appreciation and understanding of the sport that I would have been unable to collect just flipping through stations on TV and watching a traditional broadcast.
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You can select your map to focus on the fleet of racing catamarans as they move, the overall course they are sailing over, or a manual selection. Mapping data and selectable camera views from the individual boats complement the traditional broadcast view, so you can key in on a specific nation's team if you'd like to learn more about them and see things from their perspective.
In the video above you can see one of the catamarans crossing the finish line slightly ahead of its mapping data, one of several syncing issues between the different data streams that appeared to be present in a couple of the races. Still, the overall concept echoes others we've seen explored for an assortment of sports as leagues, owners and broadcasters identify ways to reach new fans, while also offering benefits to existing ones.
I'd be interested in kicking out a lawn chair and feeling the sun on my skin and wind on my face near the finish line of a race on the water. I'd likely only pull the headset off near the end of the race when the first boat starts closing in on the finish line, and I wouldn't pay $250 for the spot in the grass for my chair to sit just for the privilege of exiting my headset for that moment.
Still, RaceScape XR is a remarkably solid proof-of-concept that can pique interest really quickly in a sport you might know nothing about, and it's a model that's repeatable for a lot of other events.