The Mubadala New York Sail Grand Prix was extraordinary before a single point was scored.
Saturday’s racing was cut to two, then three boats after high winds shut down craning operations and kept most of the fleet on shore. Spain won two races, GBR one, and the question was immediate: was it fair to let three teams bank points while the rest of the fleet watched from the dock? The organisers answered overnight. Sunday started with a clean slate, all Saturday results wiped, a three-fleet-race format followed by a single event final, and every team back on the water. Taylor Canfield confirmed it mattered, saying the time on the water Saturday gave his U.S. team a read on the tide that paid dividends on Sunday. Points or not, the experience counted.
What the Saturday teams couldn’t bank was protection from what happened in Race 3. Red Bull Italy came back to the line too early, rotated hard upwind, and the U.S. boat approaching from below failed to turn clear. Mubadala Brazil had nowhere to go. Three boats, one collision, safety crew on the water within seconds. No serious injuries confirmed, but the Americans were disqualified, Italy and Brazil were out, and the event final picture that had been building all day changed completely.
Into that gap stepped the teams that had been accumulating quietly. NorthStar Canada’s Giles Scott had been wrestling a boat on the wrong wing all day in gusty, shifting conditions and still won Race 3 cleanly after the incident. ROCKWOOL Denmark came second. Tom Slingsby had damaged his boat before Race 1, started that race ninth, and worked himself back through the fleet race by race into the event final.
That final was the best racing of the day. Slingsby led early, Fletcher split at the bottom gate and came back with an 80-metre lead, Canada sailed into a wind hole and dropped out of contention, and for four of the seven legs Australia and Britain traded the lead on a course where every manoeuvre carried a cost. The finish came down to a collision on the last leg. Chief Umpire Craig Mitchell ruled no penalty on either boat. Australia crossed first.
Three events. Three wins for Slingsby. Emirates GBR second, NorthStar Canada third.
Spain didn’t race today, hydraulic problems having grounded Los Gallos before Race 2. The Black Foils are still waiting on Louis Sinclair’s return from injury and left New York without a point. The teams that raced hard across the full day, Canada, Denmark, Australia, GBR and France, are pulling clear of a fleet that is starting to separate at both ends.
SailGP heads to Halifax next, then into the European summer. And at last, in Halifax, the Black Foils are back!
| POS | TEAM | DRIVER | POINTS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | BONDS Flying Roos | Tom Slingsby | 10 |
| 2 | Emirates GBR | Dylan Fletcher | 9 |
| 3 | NorthStar | Giles Scott | 8 |
| 4 | U.S. SailGP Team | Taylor Canfield | 7 |
| 5 | DS Automobiles FRA | Quentin Delapierre | 6 |
| 6 | Artemis | Nathan Outteridge | 5 |
| 7 | Red Bull Italy | Phil Robertson | 4 |
| 8 | ROCKWOOL Racing | Nicolai Sehested | 3 |
| 9 | Explora Journeys Swiss | Sebastien Schneiter | 2 |
| 10 | Mubadala Brazil | Martine Grael | 1 |
| 11 | Germany by Deutsche Bank | Erik Heil | 0 |
| 12 | Los Gallos | Diego Botin | 0 |
| 13 | Black Foils | Peter Burling | 0 |
