SailGP: Coutts says all racing will be conducted Grouped fleet basis
by Richard Gladwell/Sail-World.com/nz 23 Jul 01:38 BST
Group Allocations - Emirates Great Britain SailGP Portsmouth - July 2026 © Sail-World NZ
SailGP CEO Russell Coutts has just announced that all racing in the Qualifying Rounds will be conducted on a "Group Racing" basis for the rest of Season 6.
An implication of the adoption of the Grouped fleets means that all Event Finals will be contested between four teams instead of three - a system which worked well in the last event at Halifax.
With the season now at its halfway point, the change is no real surprise, given that there have been three serious collisions to date, with three sailors hospitalised and out of sailing action for three months.
The Grouping will be done on the ABBA basis provided in the Sailing Instructions for splitting the fleet into two groups - in other words, the same system that was used on Day 2 of SailGP Auckland, and also at the last regatta in Halifax.
The Grouping system prescribes that the fleet be seeded using the most recent event standings (ex Halifax) to balance strength across both groups.
The ABBA seeding system (also known as "snake" or "serpentine" seeding) is a formatting method used to divide a ranked list of competitors into mathematically balanced groups, or to ensure fairness in turn-based competitions.
In Sail GP terms this means that the top ranked team goes into Group A, the second ranked team goes into Group B, the third ranked team also goes into Group B, and the fourth ranked team goes into Group A. The process is completed through the 13 team fleet - with Group A having seven teams and Group B six teams.
The top two teams in each group progress to a sudden-death Event Final.