Low-breeze Sydney still a welcome distraction from reality

It is amazing how being in the bubble of SailGP can distract you from all that is going on in the world, not least the proliferation of hostilities in the Middle East. As soon as SailGP’s podium presentation was complete, and the champagne had been sprayed, everyone was straight into the usual mode of getting all the boats and all the equipment packed up into containers bound for Rio de Janeiro, the next event on the 2026 tour.

Sunday night in SailGP land is always hectic. There is little time for taking stock of what happened, or catching up with friends and colleagues. It’s all about the logistics of getting the hell out of Dodge, ASAP. On this occasion, it was all much more complicated than usual as many found their flights via Dubai or Qatar to have been cancelled following the escalation of hostilities in the region. Remember, this is the region that hosts the end of the season with back-to-back weekends in November hosted by Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Already these venues are not that popular with the sailors or others on the tour, because of the scarcity of that vital ingredient for SailGP, the wind. That’s why we come to places like Sydney Harbour, for the reliably strong breeze, right? Except that even Sydney failed to deliver on this occasion. Perhaps in some ways the disappointingly light breeze was what we all needed after the excessive thrills and spills of Perth and Auckland. But then again, maybe not. For the casual spectator I’m not sure Sydney had much to offer on this occasion. But for us sailing nerds at The Foil, there is always interest to be picked out of any scenario.

The biggest surprise of Sydney, well, that was the victory of Team USA winning their first event with Taylor Canfield at the helm, exactly a year after they even failed to start the first race. Having capsized the boat on the way to being towed out to practise racing on the Friday of the 2025 event, this past weekend was complete redemption for Canfield and the rest of his crew.

The Americans sailed fantastically in the fleet races on Sunday, scoring the best results of the day with 3,1,6, and then took control of the final race. That moment of simultaneous take-off on to the foils between USA and GBR was the critical decider. For a few seconds it looked like Dylan Fletcher would seize the lead but Canfield’s crew responded just in time. This enabled USA to leave GBR choking in their bad gas, forcing Fletcher to gybe away sooner than he would have liked. Canfield made the bottom of the course in one gybe, and from then on he never really looked under threat for the win.

It was a calm and collected performance, but you could see from their celebrations what a relief and release of pent-up frustration this victory was for the Americans. Canfield has stuck to his process, and it has worked. “It's just step-by-step for us,” he told The Foil. “We've been saying that for a long time and a lot of people didn't believe us, but that hard work showed off today in Sydney.

“A lot of people weren't believers in our country, but we've pushed the noise aside. For us, that was the biggest thing: just keep following our process and what we know is going to work. We're super proud of the team and our progression. I know we have a lot more to come, so that's what's really exciting for me.”

It was a fantastic weekend also for Anna Weis, who must sometimes feel like the odd one out, the black sheep of the family, being the only female grinder on the SailGP tour. But when the teams get reduced from six down to four for Sunday’s racing, that’s when Anna Weis really comes into her own. While the female strategists on the other teams were battling with the handles for the first time since Abu Dhabi, for Weis it’s another day at the office, doing what she does best, putting the power through those handles. You could see the emotion and the release of tension for her and the rest of the team, who have copped so much criticism over the last year.

As for Great Britain, well, Dylan Fletcher said this is the third time this season that they have been in a final that they felt they could and should have won, and they haven't. It seems like they didn't sail particularly well, but that is the mark of a great team who can still finish second even when it seems like they have underperformed.

As for the Spanish, they displayed incredible resilience and an ability to bounce back from some terrible starts. Diego Botin and his team are very level-headed, able to spot rare opportunities on the race course. In the light winds, they seem to have the boat speed and the ability to stay on the foils very effectively where others are struggling.

It was a big disappointment for Tom Slingsby and Australia; the first time they haven't made the final on Sydney Harbour. Tom Slingsby was clearly hurting, not only for his own lack of performance, but also in some aspects of the way the racing was being managed. The Bonds Flying Roos skipper told The Foil: “In that last race we started at the pin, which worked the first two races. Then, in the last race, the wind shifted so far left on the start we couldn't even lay the mark and we had to tack to Mark 1. I've done over 50 events with SailGP; I've never, ever had to tack into Mark 1 off the start.”

So I asked Slingsby if that should have been an abandonment. “No, it shouldn't be an abandonment. But I mean, I think they shouldn't have such a long line and such a short leg to Mark 1, because it opens that game. The wind went left and then there's no margin there.”

Slingsby’s also complained about the starting procedure: “You've got a minute to go and you've got your spot on the start and you see the [robot] start mark just take off. There were a few frustrating moments there for sure, but everyone had the same conditions and they did better than us,” he said, slightly tempering his criticisms. “Well done to the USA, they sailed those conditions better than any of us.”

Artemis is the ancient Greek goddess of the hunt and the wilderness. Well, to the surprise of many, including me, Artemis SailGP looked lost in the woods this weekend and nowhere near in the hunt. We have been talking up the new Swedish team all season and in the stronger winds they have lived up to that promise. 

Strangely, it was in the lighter winds where Artemis really weren't clicking this weekend, and some of it was compounding on itself from one race to the next, as Nathan Outteridge explained to The Foil. “We really just struggle when you have a bad race,” he said. “It's a race from the finish line to get in a position to start the next race, and we're pretty much on the back foot from the moment we finished the first race. We were never getting in a position where we could enter on time to get anywhere into the starting box, always coming in late, having to tack under the fleet because we were just late from the get-go.”

“Is that a message that you're looking to get across to race management?” I asked Outteridge. “Well, that's a message that we need to get ourselves. We need to be more organised with the chase boat at the finishing line, the moment it finishes, to move us into the spot where we need to be to enter the start box.

“I haven't done much of this stuff; it's definitely a lot that happens with the chase boat and the positioning and moving your boat around with the chase boat to block others, so you can go. We ended up setting a bit too far back in the train, which meant we were last in, which gave us no option.”

There were a few encouraging performances across the fleet, particularly for Brazil, bearing in mind that they were missing two of their key players and had to make last-minute substitutions of their strategist and wing trimmer. Despite all those big crew changes and all the chaos of the weekend, Martine Grael managed to keep her nerve and put in some really solid results, winning that photo finish across the line one second ahead of Australia at the end of Race Five.

There must also be a feeling that what Sydney Harbour was like this weekend could well be a precursor of what we might get in Rio de Janeiro for SailGP’s first event in South America a month from now. Martine Grael won her first gold medal there on home waters, but there is also a lot of other Olympic experience in the fleet from those Rio 2016 Games. Dylan Fletcher just missed out on a medal in the 49er there. Pete Burling and Blair Tuke won their gold medal in the 49er in Rio, but of course they will be absent from the event in Brazil as we wait to find out the long-term plan for rehabilitating New Zealand into the fleet again.

Giles Scott really needs a boost after an awful weekend for Canada, and Rio de Janeiro was where the British Finn sailor won the first of his Olympic gold medals. So Scott will be looking to rekindle some of that Olympic magic and see if they can get Canada back on track after an awful weekend in Sydney.

And so ends the three-event tour of Australasia, with Great Britain at the top of the standings, four points ahead of Australia. These remain the two stand-out teams of the league, while the surprise package of Team USA moves up to third overall. Canfield’s victory wasn’t a fluke. They’ve been coming on strong for a few events now. There could yet be more to come.