New York: A whole season in one weekend?

Andy Rice

Waterspeed - Post-sail debrief? See exactly how it went.

Andy Rice Senior Contributor

29th May 2026 9:27pm

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Here we are in New York City, so why was the name of another city – Auckland – on the lips of all the sailors I interviewed this morning?

Because Saturday is looking like it’s going to be windy, with the potential for heinous gusts bulleting out of Broadway, as well as those other long streets with no name on the lofty island of Manhattan.

With the 345 metres and a gross tonnage of 149,215 tons of the Queen Mary 2 ocean liner blocking the F50s from being craned into the Hudson River for the traditional Friday’s practice racing, this means the 12 teams will be coming into Saturday’s gusty conditions stone cold and with no sailing time since Bermuda three weeks ago.

I asked a string of sailors – Tom Slingsby, Erik Heil, Hannah Mills, Diego Botin, Sebastien Schneiter and Taylor Canfield – which event they would be looking back to as their inspiration for this Saturday. To a man (and woman) they all said “Auckland”. It’s going to be how they handle those gusts firing out from between the skyscrapers, that’s going to be the key skill for Saturday.

SB1_9205 — Hannah Mills: among the sailors to say "Auckland" when asked the inspiration question

Small wonder that Groups A and B have already been announced for split fleet racing. After the catastrophic crash of Auckland between France and New Zealand, it would have been a surprise if they hadn’t opted for dividing them into two groups of six. This means each team will only get to write twice on Saturday; the goal for Sunday is also for two fleet races for each group before the standard three-boat final to round things off.

Meanwhile the forecast for Sunday looks horribly light. So just as they've learned how to tame the beast on Saturday, a completely different mindset is required for the next day. With light, fluky wind and a good amount of current flowing through the Hudson River, this feels like it could be a bit of Rio de Janeiro all over again. The polar opposite of Auckland.

The Mubadala New York Sail Grand Prix looks set to be the ultimate test of all-round ability on the F50. A case of a whole SailGP season in one weekend, perhaps.