More Than A Job

Florian Trittel, Spain

Goal Click has teamed up with SailGP to capture the spirit of the league through the eyes of its fans and athletes to showcase the emotion, energy, and personal journeys that surround SailGP events.

Flo Trittel is a professional sailor competing for Spain’s Los Gallos SailGP team, whose lifelong passion for sailing has taken him from discovering the sport at six to winning Olympic gold and racing against the world’s best in SailGP.

Sailing is more than just a job. It is my passion and the one place where I experience the most freedom I have ever felt. The feeling of reward from outperforming rivals is incredible.

My name is Flo, I am 32 years old and a professional sailor. I am originally German, born in Switzerland, but I grew up in Spain from the age of three. I have lived in different parts of Spain, and now I am finally living in Santander. I professionally sail in the 49er Olympic class and with Spain’s Los Gallos SailGP team.

I started sailing at the age of six because my dad and his family are sailors. When he grew up, his parents were looking for a way of entertaining the kids during the weekends, and that is where they found the sport of sailing valuable. You learn to use the elements of the wind and the sea in your favour, about physics, yourself in different situations, and about the values that the sport teaches you.

My father, together with my mum, who also started sailing when she met my dad, decided that it would be great to give us the chance to sail. They made many sacrifices to get my brothers and I to sail every weekend, and we absolutely loved it.

The Wind And The Water

I grew up sailing in my club, El Balís. In L’Escala, I sailed my first windy Optimist regatta, which I remember with bittersweet feelings. I wanted to control the boat in the breeze, and that taught me a lot during my first sailing years. It helped me to transform a fear into a respect for elements such as the wind and the water, so that later on I could end up absolutely loving exactly that: to find the fine balance between respecting and enjoying it, without exceeding the limits of going too far and suffering its consequences, whichever they may be.

From the Optimist, I transitioned to the 29er, then moved on to kite racing and kite foiling. From there, I transitioned into the Nacra 17 and went to the Youth America's Cup. Then I made the jump to the 49er to participate in the Olympic Games in Paris 2024, where we won the gold medal!

Winning an Olympic Gold Medal has been my childhood dream. But to be honest, it often sounded utopian in my head. That only changed when I saw myself with the option to achieve it, because of all the hard work I had put in to give myself the biggest chance I could. When we go to the Games, all we try to do is give ourselves the best chance to achieve a result, because nothing is ever guaranteed in our sport. We have to factor in the wind and water, things we do not control.

Parallel to that, since Season 2 of SailGP, we were given the opportunity by Russell Coutts, the CEO of the league, to join the Spanish team. It was the beginning of the journey for what was then a young, enthusiastic, and talented group of sailors in Spain. Many of the sailors who are part of our team today were already there from the start: Joel, Diego, Joan, and myself.

Our journey has been incredibly rewarding and full of growth. To be strong on the water, you need a solid team that has been together for some time and has built up that SailGP-specific knowledge. That team needs a long-term vision and acceptance that this takes time to build. If you choose the right people, the foundations for success can last for a long time. A key part of our success has been the decisions we have made around our team, from our initial crew line-up at our inception through to today.

Competing in SailGP is one of the greatest things I have ever done in my career. It is incredibly cool to race these boats 13 times a year against the best sailors in the world. A dream come true. I enjoy getting a chance at every event to be better than I was at the previous one.

Built Around Teamwork

Teamwork is absolutely key in this league. Above our professional relationship, we are friends, and that makes a big difference in SailGP, especially since we do not get to spend a lot of time together during events. We connect in our time off, which strengthens the group and helps us perform under pressure. We know how everyone thinks and reacts because of the relationships we have built.

Bouncing back in SailGP is also essential. So many things can go wrong so quickly, and the turnover from event to event is rapid. What counts to us is identifying the cause of a shaky performance. From there, we work on accepting the situation, since what has happened, has happened, and you can no longer change it, and then switch our focus towards improving. As a group, we support each other, in the widest of its sense of the word, across all departments.

To prepare for a SailGP event, there are many hours of conversations between the sailing team, coaches and performance analysts, as well as with other departments. Alignment on where we want to go as a team is important, which requires many adjustments over time from all involved parties, such as the sailing team, shore team, content team, and management.

An average day preparing for a race starts with morning activation, breakfast, and then heading over to the base, where we have media commitments, and our pre-race briefing. We go through technicalities, the wind forecast, strategy, and racing information. Then a solid flat white and some food (mainly carbs) to have energy for the on water session. After some time off and a physical activation with the sailing team, we are off to the water for warm-up sailing. Once back ashore, we debrief and wash down the boat, have dinner, and get back to the hotel for our evening studies (studying the opposition).

The Noise Of The Fans

Sailing in front of these amazing crowds is one of the aspects that makes SailGP unique in our sport. The noise of the fans in the grandstands is what makes me think “this is SailGP…”. We wear noise-canceling earphones, but the crowds are louder and make it through! Feeling the vibrations of a SailGP crowd in your heart when we fly by is one of the greatest things I have experienced in my life, even more so when it is our home crowd, the Marea Roja.

Home events are the most demanding races, where we have to carefully balance all our commitments while keeping our focus on performance. That is a real challenge, and it demands experience and maturity. Our performance in Valencia in September definitely stood out as the best Saturday we have had in our team’s history. That is the result of a team that knows how to perform under the pressure of racing in front of our home crowd and the deep desire to qualify for our first home event final and have a chance at winning it. My wife and many friends came down to support us, and that is always fuel for us!

I have enjoyed many things about the SailGP 2026 season so far, but the incredible job of our Spanish TV commentators is worth mentioning. They are the best at their job, no doubt, and that is exactly what we need to showcase our sport to growing audiences.

Now that we are qualified, we want to give ourselves the chance of winning the final. So all our efforts will go into making that happen. Beyond that, my ambition is to help create and develop the greatest sailing team our nation has ever seen.

I would tell young sailors that anything in our sport is possible, as long as you have deep passion for what you are after, and you enjoy the journey to get there. One piece of advice that has stayed with me throughout my career is: “Do what you do, as well as you can, every day of your life.”