Valencia’s first SailGP weekend delivered six races, a dying breeze, and a day one leaderboard that tells only half the story. Los Gallos and BONDS Flying Roos made light work of their respective groups. Everyone else, at some point, made a mistake the conditions punished without mercy. Here’s the full picture from a long day on the water: race by race, group by group, and what it means heading into Sunday’s final two rounds of group racing.
The conditions: a breeze that kept dying
Valencia opened with enough wind for the fleet to sail its normal programme, five crew per boat instead of the usual six, but workable. By the day’s closing races it had faded to 13 km/h, patchy and shifting, with long stretches of course where boats simply could not generate the speed to stay foiling. The 28 km/h threshold that separates flying from sinking became the number that decided races. Cross below it in the wrong place and a boat could lose three or four spots in the time it took to recover.
That sort of breeze rewards precision over raw pace, and it showed all day. Nail a manoeuvre and a boat pulled away by lengths in seconds. Rush the pop onto the foils and it dropped straight back onto the water, handing the initiative to whoever was behind. More than one race was effectively decided in the final approach to the last mark rather than anywhere earlier on the course, because that was where the breeze was thinnest and the margin for error smallest.
Group B: Los Gallos in command, Denmark finally breaks through
Race 1: Los Gallos lead every step of the way
Spain’s SailGP crew hit the front soon after the start and simply stayed there, crossing 40 seconds clear of the United States to open the inaugural Spain Sail Grand Prix with a wire-to-wire win. Canada’s NorthStar had the day’s worst start, called for fouling Denmark’s ROCKWOOL boat in a port and starboard incident and then found over the line early as well, two penalties inside a few seconds that put Giles Scott’s crew on the back foot for the rest of the race.
Taylor Canfield’s USA held second, with Denmark third after being held up in traffic at the second gate. France pipped Canada in a photo finish for fourth, and Germany came home last after a race spent swallowed in disturbed air.
Result: 1. Spain, 2. USA, 3. Denmark, 4. France, 5. Canada, 6. Germany
Race 2: Los Gallos survive two bad manoeuvres to beat Denmark by inches
Diego Botín’s Los Gallos led for most of the course, then threw away most of that lead with two poor manoeuvres in the closing stages, dropping off the foils twice in quick succession and handing Rockwool Denmark the right of way at the approach to the final gate. Nicolai Sehested’s crew made the most of it, closing what had looked a comfortable margin down to nothing by the run to the line. Both boats needed to stay foiling through the final approach, and it was wing trimmer Florian Trittel’s work on the wing that gave Botín the edge.
Spain crossed first by well under a second, close enough that the result needed confirming from the timing system rather than called from the water. USA held third. Behind them, NorthStar had right of way over France at the top mark and needed the result to climb into fourth, but France held the inside line to cross fourth themselves, with Germany fifth and NorthStar sixth for a second bottom-of-the-group finish on the day.
Result: 1. Spain, 2. Denmark, 3. USA, 4. France, 5. Germany, 6. Canada
Race 3: Rockwool Denmark end Spain’s perfect run
Nicolai Sehested had been chasing this all season. Denmark led the closing race of Group B’s day from the gun to the finish, denying Los Gallos a clean sweep and handing Spain their first defeat of the weekend. Sehested’s crew accelerated hard in the twenty seconds after the gun, popped onto the foils first, and drove straight over the top of Los Gallos to take Mark 1, wing trimmer Tom Johnson and flight controller Ed Powys combining to make it look simple after a season in which Denmark have largely struggled. Behind them, Diego Botín’s crew manoeuvred early for clean air at the DP World Gate, forcing Taylor Canfield’s boat into a wider line and an extra manoeuvre, the third time in three races USA had missed the jump on a boundary manoeuvre.
USA then stalled the wing trying to force the foils too aggressively and dropped back onto the water, letting Spain through into second. Germany produced the boldest call of the race, splitting left at a gate while the rest of the fleet went right, a gamble that held and delivered fourth. NorthStar’s day ended fifth, their light-air struggles continuing to the finish, with France last.
Result: 1. Denmark, 2. Spain, 3. USA, 4. Germany, 5. Canada, 6. France
Group A: a rollercoaster behind a dominant Australia
Race 1: Robertson times the gun to perfection
Red Bull Italy left nothing to chance at the start of Group A’s opening race. Phil Robertson found clear air off the line, rounded Mark 1 first and was never headed again, leading home a fleet that was down to six boats before the start gun had even fired, Artemis’s Nathan Outteridge sidelined by a broken jib halyard that couldn’t be repaired inside the two-minute delay teams were granted. New Zealand’s Black Foils were called over the line early and had to peel away to serve the penalty before racing began in earnest, leaving Peter Burling’s crew chasing from the back of the fleet all race. Mubadala Brazil, fouling BONDS Flying Roos moments after the gun, served an immediate penalty and lost almost no ground for it.
From there it was Robertson controlling the race, Tom Slingsby’s Australians the best of the chasers but never quite close enough to threaten, Brazil profiting from a costly Emirates GBR tactical call at the top gate to take third, and a photo finish at the final gate for fourth that went the way of GBR by a matter of centimetres. Black Foils never recovered the ground lost to the early penalty and finished last of the six boats that started.
Result: 1. Red Bull Italy, 2. BONDS Flying Roos, 3. Mubadala Brazil, 4. Emirates Great Britain, 5. Explora Journeys Swiss, 6. Black Foils, DNS: Artemis
Race 2: Slingsby delivers a birthday win as BONDS Flying Roos lock out GBR
BONDS Flying Roos led from the second manoeuvre of the day’s second Group A race and were never seriously threatened again, holding off Emirates GBR to make it a second podium finish of the day and the group’s first outright win of the weekend, on Tom Slingsby’s 42th birthday. The start box was crowded, seven boats jammed against the breakwater, and Slingsby found the answer late, pushing hard toward the wall to buy space before rolling the dice on a gap that opened in the middle of the line. It came off. The mark rounding turned into a duel between three of the fleet’s best flight controllers, Jason Waterhouse for Australia, Luke Parkinson for Britain, and Andy Maloney bringing Artemis through in the mix, with Waterhouse getting the better of it. Nathan Outteridge, racing again after his Race 1 no-show, had Artemis well placed through the second gate but chose discipline over a forced overtake, settling for third. Emirates GBR’s second gave Dylan Fletcher’s crew a four-and-two scoreline through two races. Black Foils followed in fourth, Italy came away from a Race 1 win with nothing at all, and Switzerland and Brazil filled out fifth and sixth.
Result: 1. BONDS Flying Roos, 2. Emirates Great Britain, 3. Artemis, 4. Black Foils, 5. Explora Journeys Swiss, 6. Mubadala Brazil, 7. Red Bull Italy
Race 3: Robertson bounces back from zero to win the day’s last race
Phil Robertson had the worst possible response to winning Race 1, a dead-last, zero-point finish in Race 2. Red Bull Italy answered with the best one, leading Group A’s third and final race of the day from Mark 1 to the flag. Seven boats packed the start box again, and it was Robertson who found the cleanest air, accelerating onto the foils first and rounding Mark 1 with the faster angle despite Emirates GBR holding right of way at the mark. The fleet had favoured a right-hand route around the course for most of the day; this race, several boats broke the pattern and went left, chasing a wind field that had shifted more breeze that way. It worked for everyone except Great Britain, whose boat dropped below the 28 km/h foiling threshold at the worst possible moment and came crashing back onto the water, handing the place to Explora Journeys Swiss.
Artemis came into the final approach with right of way over Emirates GBR, and Nathan Outteridge held his ground through the last mark to claim third, a result that capped a remarkable recovery from missing Race 1 entirely, with Dave Gilmour stepping into the flight controller’s seat usually filled by Andy Maloney and doing enough in marginal air to draw praise on the broadcast. BONDS Flying Roos looked out of the picture for most of the race before Slingsby clawed his way into fourth on the run home, a result worth more to the overall standings than the placing alone suggests. Emirates GBR’s late collapse cost them the podium spot they had held for most of the race; they crossed fifth, with New Zealand and Brazil rounding out the fleet.
Result: 1. Red Bull Italy, 2. Explora Journeys Swiss, 3. Artemis, 4. BONDS Flying Roos, 5. Emirates Great Britain, 6. Black Foils, 7. Mubadala Brazil
Everyone else found a way to lose the plot at least once
Red Bull Italy’s day showed just how brutal the conditions were on anyone who wasn’t switched on. Phil Robertson won Race 1, then finished dead last with zero points in Race 2, then won Race 3 outright. Same boat, same crew, three completely different results in the space of an afternoon.
Emirates GBR had a version of the same problem, minus the highs. Dylan Fletcher’s crew fell off the foils below that critical 28 km/h mark at exactly the wrong moments across the day, more than once turning a comfortable podium position into a lost place in the closing metres of a race. USA’s issue was more specific, and on the evidence of three straight races, more of a pattern than bad luck: Taylor Canfield’s crew missed the jump on the same boundary manoeuvre in all three of their races in Group B, a technical habit rather than a weather problem, and it cost them a shot at winning more than one of those races outright.
What happened to the Kiwis
Black Foils finished day one bottom of Group A on two points from three races. Sixth, fourth, sixth. It’s a rough scoreline anywhere, but it stings more than most given the conditions it happened in.
These are, historically, meant to be Black Foils weather: light, technical, marginal breeze rewarding exactly the kind of precision New Zealand’s crews have built a reputation on for a decade. The trouble is boat time, or the lack of it. Peter Burling’s team hasn’t sailed a full weekend in conditions like this since last year’s grand final in Abu Dhabi, a direct consequence of the crash with DS Automobiles France back in February that wrote off months of their season. Practice is not the same as racing, and it showed on the water today. The team that should have found this breeze the most familiar of anyone in the fleet instead looked the least sharp, caught out at starts, slow to convert manoeuvres, never quite in the fight.
There’s no disgrace in it, exactly, given what the season has taken out of this campaign. But two points from a group where the conditions were supposed to play to their strengths is a result Black Foils will want to leave behind quickly when racing resumes tomorrow.
Day one results at a glance
| Race | Winner | Runner-up | Third |
|---|---|---|---|
| Group B, Race 1 | Los Gallos | U.S. SailGP Team | ROCKWOOL Racing |
| Group A, Race 1 | Red Bull Italy | BONDS Flying Roos | Mubadala Brazil |
| Group B, Race 2 | Los Gallos | ROCKWOOL Racing | U.S. SailGP Team |
| Group A, Race 2 | BONDS Flying Roos | Emirates Great Britain | Artemis |
| Group B, Race 3 | ROCKWOOL Racing | Los Gallos | U.S. SailGP Team |
| Group A, Race 3 | Red Bull Italy | Explora Journeys Swiss | Artemis |
Group A standings after Day 1
| Pos | Team | Driver | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | BONDS Flying Roos | Tom Slingsby | 11 |
| 2 | Red Bull Italy | Phil Robertson | 10 |
| 3 | Emirates Great Britain | Dylan Fletcher | 7 |
| 4 | Explora Journeys Swiss | Sébastien Schneiter | 6 |
| 5 | Artemis | Nathan Outteridge | 6 |
| 6 | Mubadala Brazil | Martine Grael | 3 |
| 7 | Black Foils | Peter Burling | 2 |
Group B standings after Day 1
| Pos | Team | Driver | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Los Gallos | Diego Botín | 14 |
| 2 | ROCKWOOL Racing | Nicolai Sehested | 12 |
| 3 | U.S. SailGP Team | Taylor Canfield | 10 |
| 4 | DS Automobiles FRA | Quentin Delapierre | 4 |
| 5 | Germany by Deutsche Bank | Erik Kosegarten-Heil | 3 |
| 6 | NorthStar | Giles Scott | 2 |
If the final were decided today
It isn’t, and that’s worth saying plainly: each team has two more group races tomorrow, four races in total across both groups, before the top two from each group lock in their place in Sunday’s winner-takes-all final. Nothing here is confirmed.
But if day one were the whole story, Group B would send Los Gallos and Rockwool Denmark through, 14 points and 12 points respectively, with USA a further two adrift in third. Group A is a tighter picture: BONDS Flying Roos lead on 11 from Red Bull Italy’s 10, but Emirates GBR sit only four points back in third, and Explora Journeys Swiss and Artemis are locked together on six apiece, both with a genuine case for that second qualifying spot. Nathan Outteridge’s recovery from a missed Race 1 has put Artemis right back in that fight.
Two more races per group tomorrow will decide who actually goes through.
