SailGP locks in split-fleet racing for rest of 2026, as Black Foils weigh development against results
The split-fleet format that divided opinion in Halifax is no longer an experiment. Ahead of this weekend's Emirates Great Britain Sail Grand Prix in Portsmouth, SailGP confirmed that group racing, in which the 13-boat fleet is broken into smaller groups based on championship standing, will now run for the remainder of the 2026 season.
Full-fleet racing has been one of SailGP's selling points since it launched. That it's being shelved for the rest of the year was the first thing raised at the pre-event press conference on the Solent.
A permanent fixture, not a one-off
As host David Garrida informed us, group racing is now the format for the rest of the year, not just something trialled at Halifax. Teams are split according to where they sit in the Rolex SailGP Championship leaderboard.
Los Gallos strategist Nicole van der Velden said fewer boats on the course makes it "less stressful," with more room to work in tight venues or when the wind is right at the extremes. Brazil's Martine Grael said the biggest change is around the start, and expects this year's Portsmouth racing to feel calmer than the full-fleet laps that made last year's event so hectic.
Van der Velden also pointed to a practical benefit nobody had raised before: teams sitting out a heat now get downtime to watch the other group race and take something from it, instead of finishing one heat and going straight into the next start.
Not everyone is convinced it evens things out. Australia's Tash Bryant only half-jokingly called Emirates Great Britain's likely group "the group of death," and Black Foils driver Peter Burling pointed to Halifax itself as proof the format has teething problems. When Britain's boat broke down on day two there, the group effectively raced with five boats instead of seven, leaving it, in Burling's words, "very unbalanced."
What it means for the Black Foils
For New Zealand's Black Foils, the format change is almost beside the point. This season has been about getting back on the water at all. Burling said it was "great to be back on the start line" in Halifax, the team's first real race weekend after four months out. Under new ownership and coming off a rebuild, simply getting through the event mattered more than the result.
The new F50 is the one clear positive. Burling said the boat has come together well and reliability has held up, "touch wood," without the teething problems that usually come with a freshly built hull.
Burling put the rest of the season down to two things pulling against each other: keep developing the boat and crew, but also start winning, now that the European leg is underway. Portsmouth adds to that pressure. The Black Foils are the defending champions of Portsmouth, and Burling said the team is "really going out there this weekend" to defend it.
Asked to assess the rest of the fleet after watching much of the season from the sidelines, Burling said every team has surprised him at some point. Great Britain came out fast early in the season, then hit a mid-season wobble. Australia ramped up through the middle of the year, then looked more vulnerable at the last event. Spain has just been chipping away all season without much fanfare. Burling reckons as many as eight teams are capable of winning on any given weekend, and at this point he has no idea who takes the title.
The rest of the field
Emirates Great Britain's Dylan Fletcher didn't dodge questions about the wing failure that ended his team's Halifax campaign early. He called it an unusual mistake for the team, made by pushing the boat hard in benign conditions. Strategist Hannah Mills thanked SailGP's technical team for the work it took to get the wing repaired and the team back on the water in time for Portsmouth.
Los Gallos arrived in Portsmouth off the back of their first event win of the season, ending a run of near-miss final appearances. Van der Velden described the margin over the Kiwis in their final heat race that decided the event finalists as coming down to "a millimetre."
Racing at Portsmouth gets underway this weekend, with the new group format in place for the remainder of the 2026 SailGP season.
