CJ Perez makes waves at U.S. Sail Grand Prix Chicago at Navy Pier

If you took one look at the U.S. Sail Grand Prix Team racing on Lake Michigan at Navy Pier this weekend, you’d have seen one sailor who is not like the others. As the only woman aboard the U.S. SailGP Team boat in Chicago, CJ Perez is taking the international racing circuit by storm.

And she isn’t letting her team’s second-to-last place finish in Chicago slow her down.

“Fighters get hit but they keep on fighting,” Perez said following the final race of the weekend.

At eighteen years old, Perez is the youngest ever sailor, first Latina and first American woman to compete in the worldwide league. Perez embodies everything the only woman aboard the U.S. SailGP Team’s high-speed, hydrofoiling F50 catamaran in Chicago should: She is a fierce competitor with an unmatched work ethic and sharp wit tempered with natural class.

Perez, a Honolulu native, punched her ticket to the racing circuit by submitting a hydrofoiling highlight reel to the U.S. SailGP Team that blew team leaders out of the water.

According to Matt Knighton, U.S. SailGP’s senior marketing manager, Perez’s tape was so impressive that decisionmakers jumped to invite her to join the team before they even realized she was only seventeen years old at the time.

“She’s an outlier,” said U.S. SailGP Team CEO and driver Jimmy Spithill. “We just thought, ‘man, we’ve got ourselves a real weapon in CJ.’”

Perez was among the first women to go through SailGP’s Women’s Pathway Program — a program designed to train women to race the high-speed F50 catamarans. Six months after the program’s launch, SailGP increased the crew size from four to six sailors and mandated each team to include one woman on the F50s. The league’s first eight females, including Perez, made their debut in Cadíz, Spain, in October 2021.

Now in its third season, SailGP requires each of the ten national teams to have three women on its roster and one woman aboard the F50 boats during each race.

Each SailGP team crew has six positions: a driver, flight controller, wing trimmer, two grinders and the sixth sailor. The driver, flight controller and wing trimmer are all tactical positions, while the two grinders require great strength, as they are in charge of turning the boat’s winches. The women occupy the sixth sailor position and typically perform strategic duties like monitoring the driver’s blind spot and making decisions about how to maneuver the racecourse.

“Having another set of eyes is pretty important because the five of us are all so head-down and have so many controls on the boat,” said U.S. SailGP Team flight controller Rome Kirby before Chicago’s event.

But women want to be more than an extra set of eyes, they want to contribute to the tactical and physical prowess of the F50s in positions beyond the sixth sailor.

“You might be hard-pressed to find a female strong enough to turn the winches,” said Perez. “But I think so many females would be great in the tactical positions if they just had a chance.”

Because of training restrictions, getting that chance isn’t so easy.

The league itself doesn’t limit women sailors’ role assignments. However, sailors can only gain real-life experience during competitions due to the high cost of using the boats, which are shipped in separate parts between events and require a crane to get into the water. SailGP athletes train on simulators outside of competition, but the technology alone can’t mimic real-water conditions enough to get a first-timer race-ready.

Kirby said being a driver, flight controller, wing trimmer or grinder can be very dangerous without adequate real-life training because, with top speeds of over 60 mph, F50s are among the fastest racing boats and small errors can lead to big consequences.

“It takes time, it takes effort and it takes a plan,” Kirby said. “The women will get there because they’re all young and hungry.”

Hungry is another word that Spithill used to describe Perez, who has competed at each event since joining the team last season, granting her valuable on-water training time. In Chicago, Perez was given more responsibility on board: she began taking the wheel through challenging maneuvers and helped control the rudders.

“It’s helped me really feel a lot more integrated into the whole process,” Perez said. “It’s letting me gain a lot of valuable experience.”

According to Spithill, the U.S. SailGP Team is trying to expedite a plan for expanding Perez and other women sailor’s roles aboard the F50s. With Spithill’s guidance, Perez spent about an hour driving the F50 during a training session before the first event of the season in Bermuda, making her the youngest athlete to ever do so.

“Not a lot of people can ever do that,” Perez said. “It was incredible and one of the best days of my life.”

Perez said that since she took the wheel, she is determined to eventually become a full-time driver. According to Spithill, she could be at the helm sooner than she or anyone else thinks.

 “There’s no shortcut,” Spithill said. “If you want it, you’ve got to go and take it. And I know she’s willing to do what it takes. She’s the star of the future and I have no doubt she’ll be driving one of these very, very soon.”