Cristina Lazaragga (ESP) / Tom Chiappe (FRA), Team Rafa, battles with Nerea Marti (ESP) / Rusty Wyatt (CAN), Team AlUla championed by LeBron James. (Photo by Joe Portlock/Getty Images)
Annie Preston travels to Monte Carlo to visit the most glamorous event on the water and returns suitably impressed
There is nothing quite like watching a boat fly. That is precisely what happened in the waters of Port Hercule, as the E1 Series returned to Monaco for its third visit, delivering one of the most thrilling weekends yet in the young championship’s history. Team Drogba Global Africa, helmed by Kiwi pilot Micah Wilkinson and Spanish teammate Tara Pacheco, secured a historic maiden victory, while Tom Brady’s team moved into the overall Championship, lead by the narrowest of margins over Will Smith’s Westbrook Racing.
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For those unfamiliar, E1 is the world’s first all-electric race boat championship, a UIM-sanctioned series that reimagines what motorsport can look like when built entirely around sustainability, gender equality and innovation. Each team fields both a male and female pilot, racing hydro foiling “RaceBirds” that lift gracefully above the water; silent but for the hum of electric propulsion.
LUX’s Annie Preston with E1 Series CEO Jamie Copas. (Photo by Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images)
It is easy, at LUX, to be sceptical of sporting spectacles dressed up in sustainability jargon. But E1 does not simply gesture at these values; it is assembled around them, and that distinction matters enormously. As CEO Jamie Copas explained, his own introduction to the series came from an hour-long conversation that left him convinced almost immediately, “within that one hour I thought, right okay, this is really exciting”.
Three seasons in, Copas is ambitious to scale up the championship, from 10 teams and 8 races today, to a target of “12 teams and 15 races over the next two years”. This growth trajectory will require a careful choreography of logistics, sea, rail and road, in order to move RaceBirds around the globe, especially with the possibility of a second fleet based in the US.
For Copas, the racing itself is almost secondary to the story it allows E1 to tell. “We race to tell our stories,” he said. “The foundational principles behind the championship are sustainability, gender equality and innovation, and we can only tell those stories through racing and through awareness.” He is quick to point out that E1 remains the only motorsport championship in the world with genuine gender parity built into its design. Drawing the comparison to Formula E’s role in accelerating electric road cars, he sees E1 doing the same for the water: “If marine transport can become more electrified, that has real benefits for sustainability… the bigger the awareness we have, the more drive there will be from consumers for electric boats”.
Rianna O’Meara-Hunt (NZL) / Timmy Hansen (SWE), Team Miami, leads Nerea Marti (ESP) / Rusty Wyatt (CAN), Team AlUla championed by LeBron James, and Cristina Lazaragga (ESP) / Tom Chiappe (FRA), Team Rafa, during the Race Off. (Photo by Joe Portlock/Getty Images)
That philosophy runs right through to the boat itself. Sophie Horne, the Norwegian designer behind the RaceBird and founder of SeaBird Technologies, began her career at eighteen designing interiors and refits for superyachts, before a return to Oslo, then the electric-car capital of the world, sparked something in her. “I could see how far behind the electrification was,” she recalled, a realisation rooted in a childhood spent on the water with her sailing family. Designing the RaceBird in parallel with the race format, rather than adapting an existing boat to fit, gave her a rare blank canvas. “The beauty of this platform is that it is all new,” she said. Having kept technology standardised across the teams in the championship’s early seasons, Horne explained that the “gates are opening, slowly,” allowing the teams to begin altering their own technology as pilots grow more experienced together.
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Among the team owners, NBA star Kyle Kuzma brought a refreshingly grounded perspective. “This year is all about discovery for us and our team, finding what works and what doesn’t,” he told us, adding wryly that he has yet to actually sit in one of the boats himself, “I am a bit big for them.” On whether sport can bring sustainability conversations to a new audience, he was unequivocal: “Sports are the epicentre of culture and society, so having a sport like this and being able to talk about it openly, globally, is very, very important for the world.” It is, he added, “the community and people” that make the sport what it is.
The RaceBirds of Team AlUla championed by LeBron James, Team Rafa, Team Monaco and Westbrook Racing by Visit Angola. (Photo by Malcolm Griffiths/Getty Images)
Speaking with some of the pilots, including Tom Chiappe, Maxine Nocher and Oban Duncan, whose varied backgrounds, from offshore powerboat racing to professional kitesurfing, reflect the eclectic mix of talent E1 has drawn together on the water. What struck me most, walking through the paddock, was the complete absence of tension one might expect between rival teams. Every pilot we met seemed genuinely delighted to be there, and the camaraderie between competitors felt entirely unforced.
As for the day itself, there was glorious sunshine, a rather generous flow of Whispering Angel rosé, and racing that was genuinely gripping. It is rare that a sporting event can be described as both meaningfully important and thoroughly enjoyable, but E1 in Monaco managed both without breaking a sweat. Consider this our full recommendation to LUX readers for a day out to watch E1. A championship unlike any other; what, indeed, is not to love?
By Annie Preston
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