SailGP: Coutts updates on new expansion teams and new training facility
by Richard Gladwell/Sail-World.com/nz 11 Sep 10:20 BST
Mudabala Brazil is almost ready to race - Rockwool France SailGP - Saint-Tropez - September 9, 2025 © Jason Ludlow/SailGP
SailGP CEO Russell Coutts updated SailGP fans on the upcoming 2026 season, during the Media Conference ahead of the Rockwool France SailGP regatta in Saint-Tropez, which gets underway this weekend.
Coutts founded the League in conjunction with technology mogul, Larry Ellison in October 2018, with the first event taking place in Sydney four months later, with six teams. Now in its sixth season, the first event will get underway in Perth in January 2026. The two expansion places, taking the League from 12 to 14 teams were announced a few months ago.
Coutts said a formal announcement was pending on the teams.
"We've got some exciting news coming up. The Team 13 will be announced in the next few weeks. With the events that went on in Sassnitz, we made a decision to that the Team 14 will start in the 2027 season, so it's has been delayed one year," he said.
"The upside of that is that we will put an F50 into a training facility from the middle of next year.
"That is going to be a fantastic situation for new teams and existing teams to train their existing and new athletes. So I think that's going to make a big difference to the League going forward."
The reality is that two expansion places were offered earlier this year, with expressions of interest invited. It seems that one of those has been finalised, and either the second spot has not been allocated, or if it has the the team are not ready to start at four months notice.
Two new F50s were to be constructed SailGP Technologies building facility in Southampton. One was near complete, in July, with the cross beams being positioned and fitted and the other less advanced but would have been ready for a second expansion team.
Following the issues in Germany, coupled with several others this season, it has become evident that more practice sailing time is required to back up the learning from the simulator. So, the boat which would have gone to the second team will go as a training boat instead. No indication was given as to whether the training facility would be permanent, or if the boat would go to the new 14th team.
There was no indication as to how the racing would be structured with 13 SailGP teams. The intention with 14 teams was to have two rounds of seven boats, with the top two from each fleet going in to expand the winner takes all Final to four teams. The following year 2026, the League had planned to expand to 16 teams, and then two Qualifying round would be between two fleets of eight boats, again with four going forward to contest the Final .
Our guess is that the Qualifying will be expanded from 12 to 13 boats - which will make for a congested race track - but exciting for race fans.
The Predictwind forecast for this weekend in Saint-Tropez is for the Mistral to call in on Friday, with strong winds likely to preclude any practice racing. The breeze moderates on Saturday and then comes back in on Sunday - but both days in the weekend should be sailable.
Speaking with SailGP's Lisa Darmanin, Russell Coutts said the new high speed rudders may not be used on Saturday due to the high winds - with the League wanting to break in the new gear in moderate breezes, but they were an option for Sunday. He also said that the repair of the US and Brazilian boats soaked up 4,000 "man" hours by the SailGP Technologies team in Southampton.