Tom Slingsby had this one won.
The final started in barely 7.5 knots of breeze, and Slingsby got exactly the start he needed, foiling into the lead at 27 knots by the first mark, well clear of the U.S. SailGP Team, ROCKWOOL Racing and Red Bull Italy behind him. He held that lead through Gate 2 and pushed hard right, building a 90 metre buffer over the fleet. Then the breeze went soft. Australia struggled to find the speed to get back onto its foils, Taylor Canfield closed the gap and took the inside line approaching the final turn. Even when the Americans themselves stalled trying to hold that turn, Slingsby had nowhere left to go. Canfield held him out and crossed the line eleven seconds clear.
It was an interesting statistic. Every one of Saturday’s six race winners had led at the first mark. The pattern had become one of the defining features of the weekend. Get to Mark 1 in clean air in Valencia’s dying breeze and the race was effectively yours. Slingsby had done exactly that in the final, and had a 90 metre lead to show for it. This time it wasn’t enough. Unfortunately for the BONDS Flying Roos, it happened in the race with the most riding on it.
That was Valencia. Several things looked almost certain over the weekend. Quite a few of them never happened.
Diego Botín and Los Gallos Spain wowed the home crowd early. They gave their fans everything they could have asked for on Saturday, winning two of their first three races and looking, by any reasonable measure, like a team about to deliver Spain’s first SailGP victory on home waters.
Then Sunday arrived with a breeze that kept shifting, and Botín’s crew read it wrong at exactly the wrong time. They dropped to the back of the fleet and stayed there. Under the planned programme they would have had another race to repair the damage. But officials cancelled Race 5 when the wind dropped further, cutting the remaining qualifying programme short. Spain’s mistake in Race 4 delivered them zero points and ultimately cost them a place in the final.
Red Bull Italy had better luck. Saturday had been a mixed bag, with a confident opening win followed by a poor start that dropped them to seventh, before they won again in Race 3.
“Race one was a win, race three was a win, so yeah, really cool just to nail two starts and get a couple of bullets on the board,” driver Phil Robertson said afterwards.
On Sunday they picked up exactly where they had left off, winning the qualifying sprint to book their first ever event final. Then, in the race that counted most, Robertson was called over the line early. He never gave up, sailed through the penalty and recovered to finish third, giving Red Bull Italy their first event podium.
Further down the results sheet, New Zealand’s Black Foils were learning the same lesson. Sunday’s light air meant sailing with four crew instead of five. While the Black Foils have raced four up before, they’d never done it in quite this configuration, with strategist Liv Mackay shifted into a role she doesn’t normally fill. It didn’t produce a fairytale result, but co CEO Peter Burling’s explanation afterwards could have applied to every boat on the water that weekend.
“One take-off or one half-metre down the first reach is the difference between leading and not,” he said. “For us it’s really about making sure we learn as much as we can from here.”
Emirates GBR felt the consequences further up the fleet. Dylan Fletcher’s crew put together a strong final group race and still missed the event final by a single point, slipping to fifth in the championship.
Taylor Canfield’s crew, by contrast, arrived in Valencia fourth in the standings, level on points with Emirates GBR and seven points outside the top three. They left third on 56 points, ahead of Artemis on 55 and Emirates GBR on 51.
Australia’s lead at the top grew from 14 points to 17. Los Gallos Spain also increased their advantage over third place by three points. The championship leaders strengthened their positions, but the fight behind them changed considerably.
Lake Geneva is next, and it brings its own wind systems, among them the Bise, a cold north easterly that can funnel between the Jura and the Alps and turn flat water into a proper racetrack, or disappear altogether and leave the fleet drifting. When SailGP first raced there in 2025, Germany, then sitting firmly in the middle of the pack, won.
After Valencia, one thing is abundantly clear. With three events left in the 2026 season, this is far from settled.
The top two have built a healthy points advantage, but behind them there are plenty of teams capable of upsetting the order. The U.S. SailGP Team have now shown what they can do. Artemis and Red Bull Italy are right in the fight, while NorthStar Canada and DS Automobiles France have both shown they can pull something out of the bag on the right day.
Then there’s Emirates GBR. Currently sitting in fifth position, they look a little lost at the moment, but we’ve already seen what they’re capable of when everything comes together.
And don’t discount the Black Foils. They now look like this season’s dark horse. Catching the leaders may be beyond them, but they can still cause plenty of havoc further down the standings. First, though, they need to find their foils and lift their game.
