After a run of events where light winds frustrated teams and fans, Bermuda delivered. A steady 24 kilometres per hour out of the east, gusting to 30, over flat water on the Great Sound had the F50s fully lit up from the first gun. Explora Swiss recorded the day’s top speed at 97.66 km/h, and the racing had an edge that drifting around Sydney Harbour in unusually light air simply couldn’t offer. Saturday on the Great Sound was what this class of boat is made for.
The Apex Group Bermuda Sail Grand Prix, the fifth stop of the 2026 Rolex SailGP Championship, got underway with 11 F50s rather than the expected 13. New Zealand’s Black Foils remain sidelined awaiting a replacement boat following their earlier collision. Artemis had an even shorter day, hearing a loud noise during warm-ups and heading straight back to the crane before racing began. With the fleet running the larger 24-metre wing and boat speeds brushing 100 km/h, the conditions that looked benign on paper were anything but. On this course, in this breeze, small errors cost places.
Race 1: Canfield leads wire to wire
Taylor Canfield and the US SailGP team had carried a reputation as light-wind specialists into Bermuda. Race one went some way to changing that. Canfield timed his start at the top of the line perfectly and the Americans were never headed, crossing first ahead of Northstar Canada’s Giles Scott and Germany by Deutsche Bank’s Erik Kosegarten-Heil.
Los Gallos Spain worked their way from mid-fleet to fourth, picking up a position most legs through clean mark roundings. Emirates GBR picked up a port-tack penalty early, dropped behind Spain, and finished fifth. The Bonds Flying Roos, who had swept all four races on Super Sunday in Rio, came home eighth after a difficult opening.
“The whole team’s doing a great job,” Canfield said. “We’re super pleased with our sail on the boat, from boat speed to manoeuvres. One minor blunder at the top of that second lap, but just a funky thing up underneath the island there.”
Race 2: Slingsby takes control
Tom Slingsby put the opening race behind him quickly. The Bonds Flying Roos were on the foil for the full race and led from mark one, where a drag race between flight controllers Hans Henken and Jason Waterhouse ended with Waterhouse holding the inside. Once ahead, Australia were gone.
ROCKWOOL Racing’s Nicolai Sehested held on for second despite losing a daggerboard midrace, wing trimmer Tom Johnson diagnosing and solving the problem at 70 km/h on the downwind leg. Los Gallos came through in third.
France did not finish. Wing trimmer Glenn Ashby was injured during a manoeuvre, the forces these boats put through a crew member’s body on a tack or gybe easily underestimated from dry land. Red Bull Italy also had a difficult race, their daggerboard failing to respond at critical moments, and they crossed well back in the fleet.
Race 3: Spain take one
Race three was the pick of the day. Los Gallos did not lead at mark one, the first time that had happened all day, but Diego Botin worked out the course better than anyone.
At the first top mark, he went right, found more pressure, stretched to the boundary and came back on the left turn at the bottom with enough margin over the Bonds Flying Roos to hold to the finish.
“The basics are super important, but they are super hard to execute,” Botin said. “It looks easy, but I tell you it’s not.”
Wing trimmer Florian Trittel matched Botin’s precision throughout, and Spain’s mark roundings had been earning them positions all day. The Bonds Flying Roos finished second, with ROCKWOOL Racing’s Sehested in third, recovering well after the technical problems that had hampered them in race two. The US SailGP team had a race to forget in seventh, while Emirates GBR dropped to eighth, their second straight poor result.
Race 4: Robertson pushes Slingsby hard, France returns
Slingsby won his second race of the day, but the story behind him was Phil Robertson. The New Zealand-born two-time match race world champion drove Red Bull Italy right onto the Roos’ transom and kept it there, pushing Slingsby all the way to the finish. For a boat that had spent much of the day fighting technical problems, second place was a serious result.
The US SailGP team held third, with Los Gallos charging from eighth to fourth through the fleet. Emirates GBR came home fifth.
France made it back for race four. With Ashby unable to continue, Australian reserve sailor Tom Needham stepped off the Bonds Flying Roos bench and onto the French boat as wing trimmer, a baptism of fire that earned them tenth place and a championship point.
The race also produced one of the day’s more dramatic moments, with Mubadala Brazil coming off the foils after a close incident with Spain at a downwind gate, strategist Paul Goodison seen hanging from the rig as the boat crashed off the plane. No damage, but a sharp reminder of what these boats demand even on a flat-water day.
Where things stand
After four races, the Bonds Flying Roos and Los Gallos are level on 32 points. The US SailGP team sit third, the last of the three spots that reach Sunday’s winner-takes-all event final. Germany and Northstar are pressing. Emirates GBR, the defending champions, face a long day tomorrow to have any chance of making the final.
For Kiwi fans, Saturday was a day of watching. Peter Burling spent it in the commentary booth rather than on the water, though he sounded optimistic about the timeline.
“Things are starting to look really good for Halifax,” he said. “Definitely prefer to be out there racing, but it’s not looking like too far away now.”
The best New Zealand performance on the water came from Robertson, whose race four result was the high point of the day. Our adopted Swedes Artemis, carrying Kiwis Andy Maloney and Brad Farrand, never got off the crane after the pre-race mechanical, leaving three of New Zealand’s finest spending the day ashore.
Three more fleet races on Sunday will set the final lineup. Slingsby, Botin and Canfield all have form and momentum. Whether Artemis can get their boat fixed overnight, and whether Emirates GBR can find the speed that made them champions, will be two of the questions Sunday answers.
