The Foil Weekly Wrap - 9 Feb '26

Sixteen-year-olds stealing the show in Hong Kong, Peninsula Racing ending a near-decade of frustration, and a legal challenge asking whether the America's Cup has strayed too far from its roots. Plus: Auckland prepares for 30,000 fans and 13 F50s, and the most radical Ultim ever built gets her Valentine's Day reveal. Here's your weekly wrap…

Hong Kong delivered a brutally demanding opener to the 2026 World Cup season, with shifting winds pushing the world's best wingfoilers to their limits off Stanley Main Beach. The story of the week: the next generation announcing themselves in emphatic fashion. 

In the women's final, two 16-year-olds – Youth World Champion Yana Li and France's Vaïna Picot – went head to head in a nail-biter that came down to the final 100 metres. Both dropped off their foils in the closing stages, but Li reacted fastest to snatch the victory.

The men's competition saw Italy's Alessandro Tomasi continue his hot streak with a third World Cup victory. Thomas Proust led early in the France vs Italy final showdown, but a costly splashdown at the top mark handed the advantage to Tomasi, who stretched clear and never looked back. 

Four different winners on day one alone. The sheer quality across the fleet suggests 2026 could be one of the most competitive seasons yet.

John Bassadone's Peninsula Racing finally broke their drought at the 44Cup Calero Marinas, claiming victory by five points from the newest team in the fleet, Markus Törnqvist's GeMera Racing. 

For Peninsula, it's been a long time coming – their first 44Cup event win since 2017, and fittingly at the same venue where they last stood on top of the podium.

The key was consistency: across 12 races, Peninsula never finished lower than sixth and won the first race on the final day. Tactician Vasco Vascotto put it down to improved boat speed – no longer losing a metre here and there – which made the tactical calls much easier. 

GeMera Racing, with Francesco Bruni calling tactics, won the most races (three) but couldn't quite string together the consistency needed, while Chris Bake's Team Aqua were edged into third on tiebreak. The 44Cup heads to a new venue – Puntaldia, Sardinia – in late April.

TUUCI Racing wrapped up Event No. 2 of the M32 Miami Winter Series in commanding fashion, clinching the regatta before the final race was even sailed. Driver Cy Thompson and his crew won the first three races on the final day, capping a polished performance across three days of champagne conditions on Biscayne Bay. 

Miles Julien's YoungBlood took second, with defending world champion Ryan McKillen's Surge completing the podium. Seven different race winners from eight teams shows just how tight this fleet is.

The series continues at Shake-A-Leg in March and April before migrating north to Newport for a packed summer culminating in the M32 World Championship in late September.

A post by John Sweeney on Julian Everitt's Facebook page has sparked plenty of debate this past week. Sweeney – who trimmed main on America True and Oracle BMW Racing and later founded the Sausalito Challenge – argues the current Cup is operating in material violation of the Deed of Gift. 

His core claim: foiling yachts circumvent waterline limits, violate prohibitions on stored power, and don't race on Deed-compliant courses. He intends to petition the New York courts to enforce a return to a 90-ft maximum waterline monohull class, sailed by around 30 crew with no engines, no batteries, and no assisted control systems.

The Cup means different things to different people, and so the response has been predictably divided. Some long-time sailors have cheered the notion of returning to 'real' sailing. Others counter that the old Cup was boring and commercially unviable, and that a legal victory would simply return the event to being a billionaire's plaything with no TV audience.

Now, with the America's Cup Partnership bedding in and the AC38 protocol locked in for Naples 2027, the event looks to have entered a period of relative stability. But can you really lock down a competition that's been fought over for 175 years? 

History suggests this won't be the last time the Cup ends up in court. Whether that's healthy for the sport in the long term… we'll let you decide.

The big one this week. SailGP rolls into Auckland for what promises to be a spectacular weekend at Wynyard Point Race Stadium. More than 30,000 fans are expected – up 30 per cent on last year's record-breaking debut – and crucially, all 13 F50s are expected to be on the start line. Both the Spanish and Kiwi boats have been repaired, with Pete Burling and the Black Foils desperate to make amends in front of the home crowd after that frustrating collision in Perth. Andy Rice and Freddie Carr will be on the ground to bring you all the insider info.

The 2026 iQFoil season kicked off at Marina Rubicón on Saturday with 101 competitors from nearly 30 nations. After two days, Italy's Federico Pilloni leads the men, overtaking Britain's Finn Hawkins who led after day one, while Emma Wilson (GBR), the defending event champion, has extended her grip on the women's standings with three race wins. Racing continues through to Wednesday.

From 12-19 February, the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron hosts the Finn Gold Cup, the centrepiece of a three-week Finn festival that also includes the Australian Championship (already underway, 7-10 Feb) and the Finn World Masters (20-27 Feb).

Brisbane last hosted the Gold Cup 50 years ago in 1976, and the 66-boat fleet this time includes a strong international contingent: World No. 1 Laurent Hay (FRA) is still hunting his first Gold Cup win after several near-misses, while European champion Valerian Lebrun (FRA), returning Olympian Anders Pedersen (NOR), and Nick Craig (GBR) all add depth to the field.

Mark your calendars for Saturday 14 February, when the new Maxi Edmond de Rothschild will be publicly unveiled at Lorient La Base. The 28th boat in the Rothschild lineage arrives in the team's 150th anniversary year, and it's fair to say the hype is warranted – Gitana 18 represents a proper leap in Ultim design, aiming to move from hybrid flight to fully foiling offshore sailing. Retractable Y-shaped foils inspired by America’s Cup AC75s, U-shaped rudders designed to resist cavitation, and a projected 10-15% speed gain over the previous Maxi.