Flying Roos pip Great Britain for victory in the Big Apple

Australia’s Bonds Flying Roos came back from a damaging collision with debris in the pre-race warm-up to fight off Emirates Great Britain in a thrilling flying finish at the New York SailGP.

The result marks a third consecutive win for Tom Slingsby and his crew and their fourth in six races. The team now lead the British F50 by 11 points at the top of the standings.

NorthStar Canada achieved their first SailGP podium of the season by finishing third in the final. The team also won the third fleet race of the day after the United States were disqualified from their home race after a startline collision with Brazil and Italy.

Today in New York we got some clarification: after the confusion of Saturday, it was confirmed that the day's points wouldn't count towards the event. With every team finally on the water, that left just three fleet races to qualify for the winner-takes-all final – and very little margin for error.

The breeze had died down too. Where Saturday clocked in at 36 knots, Sunday offered marginal conditions, and the F50s went out on their 27.5m wings with just five crew aboard, the boats teetering on the edge of foiling.

The start of racing on Sunday saw Germany pick up an OCS penalty off the line, as Emirates GBR got away cleanly and led around mark one. The Bonds Flying Roos languished at the back, while the Spanish never made the start due to hydraulic issues, eventually having to head back to shore to miss the day entirely.

A brilliant manoeuvre after the first mark let Dylan Fletcher's crew choose the left gate, banking against the tide for a massive gain. By the third leg they'd stretched 200m clear of Taylor Canfield's USA in second. Behind them, Quentin Delapierre's France traded blows with Nathan Outteridge's Artemis – until France strayed outside the boundary, slipping to fourth as the Swedish carved through the fleet into third.

Emirates GBR crossed first, USA a comfortable second, Artemis third just ahead of France, and Canada in fifth.

Fletcher was quick to temper things afterwards. "Very different conditions, but it was some great reaching and some solid racing," he said. "We've not been happy with the way we've been performing the last couple of events, so it's nice to have a solid one. But we need another few races to keep backing it up, and hopefully we'll be getting down to that final.”

Race 1
1 Great Britain
2 United States
3 Sweden
4 France
5 Canada
6 Italy
7 Switzerland
8 Brazil
9 Australia
10 Denmark
11 Germany
DNS Spain

If Race 1 belonged to the Brits, the second one was all about the home crew. Taylor Canfield timed his approach to perfection, coming from right behind the fleet to find his window at the bottom of the line and hit it cleanly. They flew to the lead down the opening stretch, Brazil and Italy in tow, while Race 1 winners Emirates GBR sat in last.

Italy picked their way cleanly through to second by leg four, only for the Flying Roos to rebound from their dismal opener and snatch it off them. Then, on the fifth leg, having recovering well from a nosedive at gate four, NorthStar found the pressure to take second.

By gate five it was nip-and-tuck between Canada, Australia and Italy for second place, as Canfield sailed away to take the win on home waters with a 15-second cushion. The Flying Roos held on for second, and a late penalty for Canada handed third to Phil Robertson's Italians. Brazil took a decent fifth, and the Brits clawed back to sixth after their disastrous start.

Canfield put the win down to the team's work in the box. "The team did a great job with the timing and the accelerations when needed," he said. "Really tough conditions – so tough to sail the boat with the big wings and the puffs. The team's doing an awesome job, but it's race by race and things are changing quickly. We're just keeping our head up."

Race 2
1 United States
2 Australia
3 Italy
4 Canada
5 Brazil
6 Great Britain
7 Sweden
8 France
9 Switzerland
10 Denmark
11 Germany
DNS Spain

Two races in, it was USA, GBR and Italy who held the three final spots. Then the start of Race 3 tore it all up.

Phil Robertson's Italians came in early and, not wanting to take a penalty for being over, sailed up the line at a sharp angle. Canfield's US boat, with no one stationed on that bottom side and the vision blocked, didn't see them and couldn't react in time. Brazil were sandwiched in between, with nowhere to go, and all three boats collided. No injuries, but damage all round – and the umpires disqualified the US for failing to keep clear.

Up front, Germany rocketed off the line to lead at mark one, Rockwool Denmark and the Flying Roos in pursuit. But by the fourth and final leg Giles Scott's NorthStar had found the front, taking a win that mattered enormously after a rocky season. Denmark took second, Australia third.

That sealed it. NorthStar Canada topped the day’s standings on 23 points, joined in the winner-takes-all final by Emirates GBR and the Flying Roos. The fact that Slingsby had clawed back from ninth in Race 1, stringing together a two and a three to make it into the final, surprised nobody.

Race 3
1 Canada
2 Denmark
3 Australia
4 Germany
5 Great Britain
6 France
7 Switzerland
8 Sweden
DSQ United States
DNF Italy
DNF Brazil
DNS Spain

The last time these three teams met in a final was in Sydney last year. It was Dylan Fletcher's Brits who edged it, with Canada second and Australia third. New York flipped the script, but only by the thinnest of margins.

NorthStar were first up on the foils, but all three boats were late off the start line. The Flying Roos crossed first and led around mark one, GBR second, Canada third.

At gate two the split came: Slingsby took the left, while Fletcher broke right at the last moment, with Canada following the Brits. Slingsby had the chance to shut the door and didn't – and Fletcher's crew, minimising manoeuvres all the way to the boundary, jumped clear into an 80-metre lead. At the same moment NorthStar sailed into a hole, fell off the foils and that was their race effectively done.

Down the next leg the Aussies chose the same side that had handed Emirates GBR their advantage, and snatched the lead back by gate five. Down the penultimate leg there was nothing in it. Then the moment that decided everything.

Fletcher manoeuvred hard across the Aussies in a move aggressive enough to look like a foul, but Slingsby held the inside lane at the final gate and took the event win by three seconds. The umpires waved it away: no penalty for either party.

Fletcher felt the Aussies hadn't done enough to stay clear, and the frustration was plain afterwards. "We kind of thought that was a penalty on the Australians, so we need to look back and review it, because it was pretty black and white from where we were – and they weren't doing enough to stay clear," he said. "Right now we're just a bit frustrated, feeling like we threw it away. Ultimately I guess we left it in the umpire's hands, which is not what we want to do."

Slingsby saw it differently, but didn't pretend it was clear-cut. "It was a bit wild," he said on the water. "We thought we had the rights, they thought they had the rights. [The umpires] ruled in our favour, and yeah – three-times winners. We're very happy." The relief was as much about surviving the day as winning the race: "We were on the back foot all day, and it just felt like we were just trying to claw our way back into the races. And then yeah, that last race was exciting. We ended up getting away with it. It was a close one."

Slingsby emphasised how brutal the conditions had been: "It was so tough today. That's one of the hardest days I've done sailing – probably in my life, not just in SailGP. Just so patchy, with everything changing. The team just did such a good job, and our shore team did an amazing job. I thought we weren't going to be racing – we had that many broken things and problems, and the shore team just came together and got us back out there. We owe this one to them."

Final
1 Australia
2 Great Britain
3 Canada

Twenty minutes before racing began today, the Flying Roos had a damaged rudder and looked unlikely to make the start at all – the kind of setback that ends plenty of regattas before they begin. Instead, a ninth in Race 1 became the launchpad for a comeback that defined the day, the Australians clawing their way back through the fleet to win when it mattered most.

It makes three event wins on the bounce, and four out of six in Season 6. On the evidence of New York, this Australian team looks very, very hard to stop.

New York SailGP final standings
1 Australia 10
2 Great Britain 9
3 Canada 8
4 France 7
5 Sweden 6
6 United States 5
7 Denmark 4
8 Switzerland 3
9 Italy 2
10 Brazil 1
11 Germany 0
12 Spain 0

SailGP 2026 championship
1 Australia 55
2 Great Britain 44
3 United States 36
4 Spain 34
5 France 32
6 Sweden 29
7 Germany 23
8 Denmark 22
9 Canada 20
10 Italy 20
11 Switzerland 10
12 Brazil 8
13 New Zealand 2