Sunday 6 September, Group B, Race 4 — Los Gallos led Group B for an entire day of racing, won two of the first three races, and looked a formality to reach Sunday's final on their own SailGP debut. Then the wind turned unreliable again, and Spain finished dead last in Race 4. One more race remains before the final two qualifying spots are decided, but the home team has gone from cruising to genuinely needing a big result in Race 5 just to survive.
A breeze that keeps failing this league, not just this weekend
Conditions in Valencia had never really recovered from Saturday's light, patchy breeze, and Race 4 was sailed in the same marginal air that decided most of Day 1. Two fleet races remain for each group today before Sunday's winner-takes-all final, and after this one, nothing in Group B is settled.
It's worth being blunt about this rather than treating it as bad luck peculiar to Valencia. SailGP has a wind problem, and it isn't new. Back in Halifax in June this year, a rain cell cleared the harbour moments before the first start and took the breeze with it, leaving boats parked on foils built for far more wind than was actually there; the opening race there was abandoned after timing out, and what was meant to be three races a group became two. It was frustrating enough at the time that this masthead ran an editorial on it under the headline "SailGP, you cannot keep doing this to your audience," opening with the admission that its author was, in his own words, "tired and a little grumpy" writing it. New York, a few weeks earlier, had the opposite problem entirely, gusts strong enough to breach the 30 mph limit for safely craning the F50s in and out of the water, wiping out an entire day of scheduled racing before it started. Go back further, to the league's very first event in Sydney in 2019, and the story is the same: light winds and unfriendly conditions on debut.
Four venues, two seasons, both extremes of the wind spectrum, and the same result each time: racing compromised or wiped out entirely by weather the league can schedule around but never actually control. Valencia's trouble today isn't an aberration. It's the pattern.
NorthStar Canada picked up an early penalty in the start box, the kind of mistake that in 13 km/h of breeze costs far more than it would in a proper blow. Los Gallos, by contrast, found space at the top of the line and accelerated away cleanly, the sort of start that had carried them through Saturday.
Spain's start goes wrong, and there's no way back
It didn't hold. Sailing almost perpendicular to the course on the wrong side of a shifting breeze, Los Gallos invested heavily in a route that simply wasn't paying, chasing pressure that wasn't there while the rest of the fleet sailed away from them. By the time they got the boat foiling again it was too little, too late. Diego Botín's crew spent the closing stages of the race in H1 mode giving the home crowd a show, but with nothing to show for it on the scoreboard.
USA sailed the opposite race. Taylor Canfield's crew crossed first, secured, and were already cruising back to pit lane by the time the placings behind them were still being fought out. It's the biggest result of their weekend, and it puts them top of Group B heading into the final race.
Denmark's near-disaster, and a group still very much alive
The fight for the minor placings came down to the very last leg. NorthStar had Rockwool Denmark in trouble on the run home, Nicolai Sehested's crew briefly both hulls in the water, with a foiling French boat also bearing down from behind. Sehested got the boat back up and held on for fourth. Germany crossed second, driver Erik Kosegarten-Heil putting together his best result of the weekend, with NorthStar third, their best finish of the event. France came home fifth.
Spain finished sixth. Dead last, on home water, after leading the group for an entire day.
Where this leaves Group B heading into Race 5
USA lead the group on 15 points from four races. Denmark sit second on 14, with Spain level on points but third on countback after that last-place finish. Nothing here is confirmed. One more race decides which two of these three teams join Group A's qualifiers in Sunday's final, and on today's evidence, a repeat of Race 4's conditions could flip the picture again just as easily as it flipped this one. Spain need a big result and a bit of help from the breeze. Denmark need to hold their nerve after nearly losing it on the water in this one. USA just need to keep doing what they did today.
Result
Race 4 result (Group B): 1. U.S. SailGP Team (Taylor Canfield), 2. Germany by Deutsche Bank (Erik Kosegarten-Heil), 3. NorthStar (Giles Scott), 4. ROCKWOOL Racing (Nicolai Sehested), 5. DS Automobiles FRA (Quentin Delapierre), 6. Los Gallos (Diego Botín)
Group B standings after Race 4 (not final — Race 5 still to be sailed (correction, Race 5 has now been dropped): 1. U.S. SailGP Team 15pts, 2. ROCKWOOL Racing 14pts, 3. Los Gallos 14pts, 4. Germany by Deutsche Bank 7pts, 5. NorthStar 5pts, 6. DS Automobiles FRA 5pts
