Can sailing become a product development ground for brands?

The partnership between ABB and Ferrari Hypersail, announced on 14 September, says more than a standard sponsorship story.

Ferrari Hypersail is a 100ft (about 30 metres) ocean-going monohull built to sail fully on foils. Guillaume Verdier designed it and Giovanni Soldini will be at the helm, while Ferrari brings across the aerodynamics, structural analysis, control systems and sensor technology it has developed on the automotive side.

Where does the boat get its energy?

One of the most critical topics for the boat is energy management. From navigation and foil controls to safety systems and the propulsion system, the required energy needs to be generated, stored, and managed while underway.

“Hypersail runs entirely on renewable energy. It has to be self-sufficient for weeks.”

Ferrari Hypersail project leader Enrico Voltolini sums up the rationale for the partnership in ABB’s announcement.

This is where ABB's role begins. The company is involved in the project as the “electrification partner,” bringing its over 25 years of experience in the direct current field and more than 700 patents to the vessel's electrical architecture. This architecture is designed as a self-sufficient, high-performance microgrid consisting of systems operating at 48 V and 800 VDC.

How will the technology be tested?

What makes the partnership interesting goes beyond the technology itself: where and how that technology will be tested.

Hypersail is being developed to be self-sufficient for weeks at a time. Cold weather, saltwater spray, pressure, and constant movement will be the system's natural operating conditions. The technical issues that arise will not simply be written into a test report; they will directly reflect on the boat's performance.

So for ABB this is more than a project that places it alongside the Ferrari brand. The company says the knowledge gained here will feed into advanced power systems for shipping, data centres and renewable energy infrastructure.

What does sailing offer brands?

This is where the boundary of sports sponsorship widens.

In addition to being a communication platform that provides visibility, sailing can also turn into a development ground where certain products and solutions can be tested under real-world conditions. For companies operating in fields such as energy systems, sensor technologies, telemetry, composite materials, coating solutions, technical textiles, communication infrastructure, and software, racing boats offer something different from a controlled laboratory environment: constantly changing real-world usage conditions whose results are directly reflected in performance.

What could be the equivalent in Türkiye?

A boat racing in Türkiye for a full season can also provide brands with regular field data. Conditions ranging from the Marmara to the Aegean, from coastal races to the open sea, make it possible to monitor the performance of the system or material used over the course of months. The team's experience can also become a natural part of the product development process.

This approach changes the frame of the sponsorship conversation as well. The conversation moves past visibility, media value and hospitality rights; the collaboration now takes in product, engineering, innovation and business development teams. Instead of running the discussion with marketing alone, those teams can be brought into it.

Türkiye has plenty of fields where this could apply. For companies making energy technologies, marine electronics, composites, paints and coatings, batteries, communications, software, sensors and technical textiles, sailing can work as a product development environment that runs under real conditions, alongside being a sport worth supporting.

The partnership between ABB and Ferrari Hypersail shows how far sailing can go for a brand: visibility, yes, and alongside it product development, hands-on experience and learning under real conditions.

Türkiye has the races, teams and brands to match. So a presence in sailing becomes something each brand shapes around its own strategy.

The obvious question: will ABB Türkiye be part of the sailing ecosystem here as well?