Kiwis spread across grid for Germany SailGP return

New Zealand sailors will front several different teams when the ROCKWOOL Germany Sail Grand Prix gets underway in Sassnitz this weekend, the eighth stop of the 2026 Rolex SailGP Championship.

Peter Burling drives the Black Foils again, with Blair Tuke on wing trim, Leo Takahashi as flight controller and Liv Mackay calling strategy. Kate Stewart steps into the reserve strategist role, a change from the last event.

Andy Maloney takes the flight controller seat for Artemis SailGP Team alongside driver (and honourary Kiwi) Nathan Outteridge and Brad Farrand on Jib trimming, with fellow Kiwi Sam Meech coaching from the sidelines. Phil Robertson helms Red Bull Italy.

And the other teams

France also arrives with changes. Leigh McMillan moves up to wing trimmer in place of Enzo Balanger, who drops to reserve, while Amelie Riou takes over as reserve strategist from Margaux Billy. Quentin Delapierre continues driving.

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Germany by Deutsche Bank races in front of a crowd it can genuinely call its own, with driver Erik Kosegarten-Heil at the helm of a project he helped build from scratch alongside Formula 1 champion Sebastian Vettel and entrepreneur Thomas Riedel. What started as three people is now a team of 28. Kosegarten-Heil, a two-time Olympic bronze medallist who’s also completing a medical degree between events, has spent the season bedding in new wing trimmer Kevin Péponnet. “Now we have the split fleet with higher speed approaching the line, the slingshot is getting weaker,” he says of the adjustment. “We’ve just had a big job working on this, and it’s getting better.” An event win in Geneva last season and a first Final of 2026 in Bermuda back that up, even with the starts still a work in progress.

Sassnitz made its SailGP debut in 2025 and delivered from the start. The Baltic port on the northeast tip of Rügen drew 13,000 fans to the shoreline, and ROCKWOOL Racing set a new SailGP speed record there, 103.93 km/h (56.2 knots). Germany’s slot on the calendar is locked in through 2027, the grandstands have been expanded, and ticket sales point to Sassnitz again ranking among the three best-attended stops this season. August tends to bring gentler conditions for the Baltic, average winds of 10 to 12 knots and a prevailing westerly, though last year’s shift from training breeze to raceday breeze caught more than one crew off guard, and a seawall behind the grandstand kicks up chop at the bottom gates.

Tom Slingsby’s Bonds Flying Roos still lead the season on 66 points, but the margin has tightened. Diego Botín’s Los Gallos have won two events in a row and sit just 12 points back in second, while Nathan Outteridge’s Artemis, back-to-back second-place finishes in the bank, have climbed to third without an event win yet to their name. Emirates GBR arrive under real pressure after a home-water Portsmouth result that yielded nothing.