SailGP: Consistent Spain leads after a squirrely Day 1 in Sydney
by Richard Gladwell - Sail-World NZ 28 Feb 10:34 GMT
Artemis Racing leads the pack - Day 1 KPMG Australia SailGP Sydney, Australia - February 28, 2026 © Travis Hayto/SailGP
Los Gallos, Spain's SailGP team, sailed a consistent opening day to lead the points table, after the first day of racing in a squirrely breeze on Sydney Harbour.
It was Spain's 2024 Olympic Gold medalist, Diego Botin, skipper of Los Gallos, who found more gold at the end of several rainbows that overlooked the race course.
Billed as Twilight Racing, it is not quite clear what the organisers hoped to achieve by shifting the racing to later in the day. Based on what we see each week from the 18fters sailing on the same patch of water, the breeze got worse as the daylight faded.
There were frequent periods when the F50s came off the foils after hitting a hole in the squirrelly breeze. On the other hand, it was a day for the puddle jumpers as strategists searched for a way of joining the pressure puffs, and whether they would be sufficient for the F50s to hit the magic 30km/h plus speed mark - and pop onto their foils, with a near doubling of boatspeed.
Maybe it should be no surprise that Australian-born helmsmen occupy the second and third places on the overnight leaderboard, given the role that Shark Island played in its dominance of the course, located on their sailing playground.
Bonds Flying Roos strategist, Tash Bryant, who just a few months ago became to the first female to win an open 18ft skiff championship race on Sydney harbour, had the most recent experience of the vagaries of Sydney Harbour, and guided her team to a vital win in the final race of the day, after the Roos found a squirt of breeze, and foiled along the shore of Shark Island to snatch a race win.
Bryant's input would have been even more vital as organisers reduced crew numbers from five to four for the last two races of the four sailed. That downsizing was a response to the easing breeze, lightening the crew's weight, to assist foiling. The reduction placed a premium on crews keeping their eyes out of the boat, particularly for those strategists who moved forward into grinding positions.
Significant, too, was the return of Iain Jensen (AUS) aboard the Flying Roos, after passing medical and mobility tests on his injured knee.
The Australians, along with Los Gallos, both won two races, boosting them to the top of the overnight leaderboard, with Botin and friends occupying the top slot by virtue of their two fifth places. The Australian response was to record 8th and 6th places in Races 2 & 3. They looked to be in real trouble going into the start of Race 4 - lying in fifth place on the points table. Their woes were compounded by sailing outside the course boundary during the pre-start and were whacked with a penalty for their indiscretion by the Umpiring team. But the Spanish were also penalised for fouling the USA team in the pre-start.
200 metres into Race 4, the 11-boat fleet was already in two groups. Northstar Canada, despite being in contact with the lead group, could not win a trick all day and slid back to add a second 8th place to their points score, after finishing 11th and last in the first two races of the day, and are the cellar-dwellers on the overnight leaderboard.
"It was a really tough day, up and down for everyone, but especially for us," said skipper, Double Olympic Gold medalist, Giles Scott (GBR). "To be honest, it felt like a day of zero ladders and plenty of snakes. We’ve got a fair bit to review, but at the same time we don’t want to overanalyse it. It was just one of those days."
"We had a couple of good starts, and one that was nearly there, but we just couldn’t convert. If I’m being completely frank, we’re not firing at the moment. There are a few areas we’re not executing well enough. Our boat handling wasn’t clean, we didn’t always pick the right side of the course, and in conditions like that you can’t afford to be slightly off. It all adds up," he said with an air of resignation.
Artemis Racing improved on their Auckland performance, scoring 2nd in Race 3 and 4th in Race 4, and are currently on 26pts. They were given a gee-up by CEO, Iain Percy, who won the first of his two Gold medals on Sydney Harbour at the 2000 Olympic Games in the Finn class. The team, which makes its debut in Season 6, just missed the podium in Fremantle and Auckland and is aiming to reach the Final in Sydney, a significant accomplishment.
Emirates GBR, event winners in Auckland and Fremantle, appear to have lost their momentum in Sydney, lying in fourth place on the points table, three points behind Sweden, and 9pts behind overnight leaders Spain.
Red Bull Italy and USA SailGP team round out the top six overall, tied on 22pts each. For both, it was an encouraging yet testing day as the teams strive to build crew cohesion following changes made to the backend of Season 5.
Germany, Brazil, Denmark, and Switzerland are covered by just a 2-point margin, and are 6 points behind the USA, and will need a dramatic change in fortunes to make the Final, on Sunday, where another three races are scheduled to determine the top three Qualifiers who will compete in the Event Final on Sunday evening.
In the Mixed Zone, the Danes reported issues with their port foil case, which was not able to be repaired on the day.
The breeze is expected to be more in the east, and solid, but even so Tom Slingsby said in the Mixed Zone that they had been advised that the bigger 27.5metre rig would be deployed. Today, the 24metre wing was used.