‘Rules is rules’ and the unwritten rule of SailGP racing is that first at the first mark, is first to the finish.
And that rule of thumb was working throughout the ten SailGP fleet races at Portsmouth and was only overturned in the winner-takes-all Final.
Sweden lead from the start until Spain’s Los Gallos, who were last to start, took the lead at gate 4 to lead from there to win the Emirates Portsmouth Sail Grand Prix. Picking that moment to overturn the norm is a winner.
The signature SailGP race start is a full speed, timed dash for the start line, with no quarter given – within the racing rules. With the full 13 strong fleet this had become semi-controlled mayhem, but it was the signature move of SailGP racing that helped to propel the sedate sport of yacht racing into a world-wide media success.
The complication of traditional windward starts with all that Port and Starboard stuff was swapped for a high speed straight line dash . . . simple, crowd pleasing and great on screens, which is the medium it helped to conquer.
Thus SailGP developer Russell Coutts was loath to dump the feature that defined the event, but eventually as the crashes and injuries mounted, the increasingly unwieldy fleet was split and the Group Racing format developed.
The Portsmouth event was the first with the Group format operating – other than when weather conditions had forced a last minute introduction – and went off without major incident. In fact the spectators got more action with six race starts on Saturday and five on Sunday, and four teams included in the Final (up from three) making for a more involved race.
Still in operation was the ‘first at the first mark is first to the finish’ rule of thumb, and it proved the downfall of 2025 League Champions Emirates Team GBR.
Skipper Dylan Fletcher only managed to win two starts across their five races. On day 1 they lead from from start to finish in race 3B to keep a faint hope alive for day 2.
But after winning the start in their final race (5B) on day 2, what Strategist Hannah Mills described as ‘a boat handling error’ dropped them off the foils, and the race was done . . . they finished sixth and 11th overall for the weekend.
Fletcher recognised that while the team was unhappy with its performance, the support and atmosphere from the home fans was still “amazing”. And Mills added “We know this is not where we want to be, and we need to put in a lot of work to get ourselves back to that point – but we’re ready for that.”
Portsmouth pulled off a second highly successful event, glorious weather and 20,000 ticketed fans over the weekend. The well-oiled SailGP machine producing the spectacular Stands and Race infrastructure without fuss, directed from the Tech Hub at SailGP Technologies at Southampton.
The poor showing over the weekend has dropped the British team down to fifth on the season leaderboard now 22 pts adrift of Aussie Tom Slingsby and the Bonds Flying Roos Team.
Next-up the ROCKWOOL Germany Sail Grand Prix | Sassnitz, over 22-23 August 2026.