A new fastest boat in the world
DS Team France hit 107.63km/h rounding the first mark of Group A’s third and final race, breaking the 103.93km/h mark Rockwool Denmark had held since setting it at this same venue in 2025. Nicolai Sehested, Denmark’s driver, had said before racing this weekend that beating his own record would take everything lining up: wind strength, timing and a share of luck. The wind was up and gusting off the Baltic all day, and SailGP’s own preview material for the event describes the course’s chalk cliffs as creating wind corridors along the track.
France didn’t win the race they set the record in. Los Gallos Spain did, recovering from a boundary penalty early in the race to retake the lead and hold on, which means the fastest boat in the sport’s history finished second in its own race. Sailing that high and fast carries real risk. Two boats, Denmark and Spain, came off their foils entirely within minutes of France’s top-speed run, air pulled down the sides of an overloaded foil until it lets go without warning. Denmark, the record holder going into the day, was one of them.
Group A: three races, three different winners
Black Foils NZ opened the day with a win, Peter Burling’s crew leading from the front in race one. DS Team France answered in race two, Quentin Delapierre’s crew holding off a fast-recovering New Zealand after a messy middle stretch in which Los Gallos Spain and Red Bull Italy both came unstuck at the top mark and Rockwool Denmark climbed from fifth to third amid it all.
Delapierre crashed heavily in practice at this same venue last year, an accident serious enough to send him to hospital, and came back days later to win the event itself. Leigh McMillan, back on board for France in this race, was playing his first full event since shoulder surgery.
Race three belonged to Spain and the record, but the placing that mattered most back home came right behind it. New Zealand finished third, enough to top Group A outright on 12 points from three races, one clear of France on 11. It’s the best day the Black Foils have had all season. The Auckland collision took them out of four straight events, Sydney, Rio, Bermuda and New York, and their return at Halifax ended in a one-point miss of the final. Portsmouth was worse by a whisker, missed by two. This time there was no photo finish to sweat over. New Zealand led their group with a race still to sail.
Los Gallos Spain and Switzerland finished the day tied on 7 points, Spain ahead on the tiebreak after their late win, but neither goes through to Sunday. Diego Botin, whose Spanish crew had finished seventh and fourth in the day’s first two races, put the turnaround down to a straightforward reset. “We struggled a bit in the first two races, getting into some trouble and maybe not saving the best potential, but I think we did a good reset and a good race for the last one,” he said afterwards.
Group B: Australia’s near-perfect day, and a quiet run to the final
Tom Slingsby’s Bonds Flying Roos won the first two Group B races of the day, the second of them coming after Emirates GBR clawed back from fourth to second across the middle of the course while NorthStar Canada, second in race one, faded to last. Interviewed on the water after that first win, Slingsby summed up the conditions simply. “Sassnitz really turns it on for us. It’s breeze-on, shifty, but fun,” he said. “Honestly, we happily give away speed records. We’re not looking for it.”
Australia’s day nearly finished perfect. It didn’t. In the run to the line in race three, with Germany’s Erik Kosegarten-Heil already clear at the front for a first home win of the weekend, Australia fouled Emirates GBR and the US SailGP Team fouled Artemis Sweden in the same tangled stretch. Both penalised boats lost significant speed, and Australia, chasing a clean sweep, ended up last.
It was Artemis Sweden who made the day count without ever winning a race. Third in the first, third in the second, third in the third: nobody else in Group B managed to front up three times running, and in a format that rewards consistency as much as outright speed, that was enough. Nathan Outteridge’s crew go through to Sunday’s final on 9 points, one clear of NorthStar Canada, while Australia’s 10 points from an afternoon that started with two wins are still good enough to top the group.
Day one standings
Group A
| Pos | Team | Driver | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Black Foils | Peter Burling | 12 PTS |
| 2 | DS Automobiles FRA | Quentin Delapierre | 11 PTS |
| 3 | Los Gallos | Diego Botin | 7 PTS |
| 4 | Explora Journeys Swiss | Sébastien Schneiter | 7 PTS |
| 5 | Red Bull Italy | Phil Robertson | 4 PTS |
| 6 | ROCKWOOL Racing | Nicolai Sehested | 4 PTS |
| 7 | Mubadala Brazil | Martine Grael | 0 PTS |
Group B
| Pos | Team | Driver | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | BONDS Flying Roos | Tom Slingsby | 10 PTS |
| 2 | Artemis | Nathan Outteridge | 9 PTS |
| 3 | NorthStar | Giles Scott | 8 PTS |
| 4 | Emirates GBR | Dylan Fletcher | 7 PTS |
| 5 | Germany by Deutsche Bank | Erik Kosegarten-Heil | 6 PTS |
| 6 | U.S. SailGP Team | Taylor Canfield | 5 PTS |
Sunday’s final
There are two more fleet races for the whole group, so nothing is written down yet! But, as it stands now, the Black Foils NZ, DS Team France, Bonds Flying Roos and Artemis Sweden would contest Sunday’s winner-takes-all final for the ROCKWOOL Germany Sail Grand Prix title. For New Zealand, it would be their first final appearance since the Auckland collision took them out of four straight events back in February, and it comes on the back of the most complete day the team have put together all season.
