{"id":250497,"date":"2026-06-01T05:12:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T05:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/250497\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T05:12:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T05:12:23","slug":"sailgp-a-crash-and-an-australian-victory-on-day-2-of-new-york-sail-grand-prix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/250497\/","title":{"rendered":"SailGP: A crash and an Australian victory on Day 2 of New York Sail Grand Prix"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note: This story is part of The Athletic\u2019s coverage of SailGP, an international sailing competition that has been likened to Formula 1 on water. Follow SailGP here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Taylor Canfield and his U.S. team were doing all the right things to send them on their way to a first victory on home waters in SailGP. After finishing second in Sunday\u2019s first of three fleet races at the New York Sail Grand Prix, and easily winning the next, all the Americans needed was an average start in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. An average start would have most likely been enough to secure what looked like a certain place in the three-way fight for overall honours.<\/p>\n

But then it all unravelled so quickly for Canfield. Instead, somehow it was Tom Slingsby who emerged from a bruising day of unreliable wind and an unhealthy dose of boat-on-boat carnage to steer Australia to victory in the three-boat final. The British team pushed the Aussies hard all the way to a controversial finish, to end up in second, with Canada finishing third in Giles Scott\u2019s first final of the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

Aussies defy their bad fortune<\/p>\n

A carbon-crunching, three-way crash on the start line of the final fleet race will dominate people\u2019s memories of a mad Sunday, making Australia\u2019s victory of resilience somewhat of a footnote at the end of a wacky weekend. More of the crash in a moment.<\/p>\n

There were so many times over the weekend when it looked like Australia\u2019s great run of form and fortune had finally expired. Yet just two days after Slingsby\u2019s celebrity team co-owners \u2014 Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds \u2014 announced a Disney+ docuseries following the team\u2019s progress through the SailGP season, the Bonds Flying Roos continue to go from strength to strength.<\/p>\n

Slingsby knew he\u2019d enjoyed his share of luck, too, however. After a big nosedive Saturday put them out of action, the shore crew had worked most of the night to repair and ready the green-and-gold boat for action Sunday. Then, when the boat hit a piece of unidentified debris in the Hudson River while getting in some practice before the racing began, one of the rudders broke. The Aussies were looking unlikely to make it in time for the first race, but, again, the repair team worked their magic and got the wounded Roos up and running again.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew York\u2019s always been a bit of a wild one for us,\u201d Slingsby told The Athletic. \u201cWe\u2019re pleased to have scored a victory here in the city where our co-owners (Jackman and Reynolds) live. This is not the usual race track that plays to our strengths. We liked the bigger courses where we can make our boat speed advantage work in our favour, so we\u2019re really happy to have won here on a short course.\u201d Hanging out with those Hollywood superheroes seems to be working well for Slingsby.<\/p>\n

The rain in Spain<\/p>\n

Where the Australians recovered from technical breakdowns by the skin of their teeth, Spain, on the other hand, suffered hydraulic problems that meant Los Gallos were unable even to start the first race. A particularly tough pill to swallow for Diego Botin after his team won two of Saturday\u2019s three high-wind races, albeit only four boats made it onto the boiling waters of the Hudson River on a severely compromised day for SailGP. However badly things went for the Spanish, at least they weren\u2019t involved in that crash.<\/p>\n

The crash<\/p>\n

After they finished the first two fleet races so strongly, American dreams unravelled in the blink of an eye. Italy\u2019s skipper Phil Robertson realised he was getting to the start line too soon. To avoid crossing the line early, his only option was to turn right and get his F50 along the length of the line. The 27.5m wing sails create a huge blind spot. The U.S. team, with all five sailors on the windward side of their boat, didn\u2019t spot the unexpected change of direction by the Italians. The American boat skewered the front of the Italian obstruction. Meanwhile, a split-second later, the Brazilians \u2014 with nowhere to go \u2014 smashed into the back of the Italian boat. All three F50s were not locked together as the other nine boats foiled away down the race track.<\/p>\n

Confirmation soon came through that no one had been injured, just the boats, which would play no further role in the competition. An hour later, Canfield was surprisingly upbeat considering the disaster that had ruined an otherwise well-executed day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had two really great races and started the boat really well, but then things can come down to that one bad moment,\u201d he told The Athletic. \u201cFor all of that, we\u2019ve got to look at some of the positives we had today.\u201d As for the crash: \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone is looking to get crashes here. We just need to make sure we\u2019re looking after each other and looking after the boats.\u201d<\/p>\n

Are split fleets the answer?<\/p>\n

That depends on whom you ask. After the horrific Auckland crash, SailGP said we\u2019d see a lot more \u2018split fleets\u2019 \u2014 dividing the pack into two groups as a means of reducing high-traffic moments of risk.<\/p>\n

Nathan Outteridge, Australian skipper of the Swedish team, told The Athletic: \u201cWe were meant to do split fleets this weekend, and then they changed it after yesterday\u2019s blowout. But I think what we\u2019re seeing now is, with all these small courses, it\u2019s not a whole heap of space. It was a cool event, but it was a shame we only got one day of racing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Danish skipper Nicolai Sehested had another point of view. \u201cI disagree with Nathan,\u201d he told The Athletic. \u201cYou can have crashes in a split fleet as well. In the split fleet, you\u2019ll still have six boats, so you can still have the same thing that happened today, and the same goes for the situation with France and New Zealand in Auckland. It\u2019s two boats next to each other, so I don\u2019t think split fleets is the solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

On to Halifax<\/p>\n

It\u2019s three weeks until the next SailGP Grand Prix weekend in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Three weeks to digest what happened over a frenetic weekend. This is the weekend when New Zealand are set to make their return to the league after missing all the events since the crash with France in Auckland in February. But just as the Kiwis are set to return, will the badly damaged Italian boat be able to get repaired in time? We thought it would be 13 boats in Halifax. It might still be 12.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor\u2019s note: This story is part of The Athletic\u2019s coverage of SailGP, an international sailing competition that has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15558,9,11,10,18129],"class_list":["post-250497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-global-sports","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-sailing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}