Saturday on the Great Sound produced the racing the F50 class was built for. After a regatta stretch that had ground down competitors and spectators with drifting, underpowered conditions, a steady easterly arrived at 24 kilometres per hour, gusting to 30, and Bermuda's flat water became a racetrack. Explora Swiss clocked the day's fastest speed at 97.66 km/h, and the quality of competition across all four races was something no amount of light-air patience can replicate.
The fifth stop of the 2026 Rolex SailGP Championship, the Apex Group Bermuda Sail Grand Prix, opened with 11 F50s on the startline rather than the 13 the schedule had called for. New Zealand's Black Foils remain sidelined, still waiting on a replacement vessel after their earlier collision. Artemis had an even more abrupt end to their day before it began, a loud noise during warm-ups sending them straight back to the crane. With the fleet racing the larger 24-metre wing and hull speeds nudging 100 km/h, conditions that might have looked manageable on the briefing sheet were anything but forgiving. On a course like this, in a breeze like this, even small errors translated directly into lost places.
Race 1: Canfield leads wire to wire
Taylor Canfield had arrived in Bermuda with a reputation built largely around light-air mastery, and the US SailGP team were widely regarded as specialists when the breeze was soft. Race one gave the first indication of how they handle the other end of the spectrum. Canfield nailed his start at the top of the line and was never threatened, finishing ahead of Northstar Canada's Giles Scott and Germany by Deutsche Bank's Erik Kosegarten-Heil.
Los Gallos Spain were the quiet achievers of the race, working forward from the middle of the pack through tidy mark roundings and picking up a position on most legs to cross in fourth. Emirates GBR incurred a port-tack penalty early, fell behind Spain, and finished fifth. The Bonds Flying Roos, who had swept all four races on Super Sunday in Rio, came home eighth after a difficult opening to the day.
"The whole team's doing a great job," Canfield said. "We're super pleased with our sail on the boat, from boat speed to manoeuvres. One minor blunder at the top of that second lap, but just a funky thing up underneath the island there."
Race 2: Slingsby takes control
Tom Slingsby and the Bonds Flying Roos wasted no time putting race one behind them. They were on the foil for the duration and established their lead at the first mark, where a drag race between flight controllers Hans Henken and Jason Waterhouse concluded with Waterhouse securing the inside line. From that point, the Bonds Flying Roos were not going to be caught.
ROCKWOOL Racing's Nicolai Sehested held second despite losing a daggerboard mid-race. Wing trimmer Tom Johnson identified and resolved the issue at 70 km/h on the downwind leg, keeping the team in contention. Los Gallos came through for third.
France did not complete the race. Wing trimmer Glenn Ashby was injured during a manoeuvre, a reminder of how hard the forces on these boats act on crew during tacks and gybes. Red Bull Italy also struggled, their daggerboard failing to respond at key moments, and they finished well down the fleet.
Race 3: Spain take one
The third race was the pick of the day. Los Gallos did not reach mark one in front, the first time that had happened across the entire session, yet Diego Botin read the course better than any of his rivals.
At the first top mark he committed to the right side of the course, found more pressure, pressed to the boundary, and came back around the left-hand gate at the bottom with enough of a cushion over the Bonds Flying Roos to hold it to the finish.
"The basics are super important, but they are super hard to execute," Botin said. "It looks easy, but I tell you it's not."
Wing trimmer Florian Trittel matched Botin's precision throughout, and Spain's clean mark roundings had been earning them positions all day. The Bonds Flying Roos finished second, with Sehested and ROCKWOOL Racing third after recovering well from the technical problems that had hampered them in race two. The US SailGP team had a race to forget in seventh, while Emirates GBR dropped to eighth for their second consecutive poor result.
Race 4: Robertson pushes Slingsby hard, France returns
Slingsby claimed his second win of the day in race four, but the more compelling story was unfolding directly behind him. Phil Robertson, the New Zealand-born two-time match race world champion, drove Red Bull Italy right up onto the Roos' transom and kept it there for the entire race, pushing Slingsby across the line. For a boat that had spent much of the day fighting technical problems, second place was a serious result.
The US SailGP team rounded out the podium in third, with Los Gallos charging through from eighth at the start to fourth by the finish. Emirates GBR crossed in fifth.
France made it back onto the water for race four, though not with the same crew. With Ashby unable to continue after his race-two injury, Australian reserve sailor Tom Needham stepped off the Bonds Flying Roos bench and onto the French boat as wing trimmer. The improvised combination earned France tenth place and a championship point. The race also produced one of the day's more dramatic moments, with Mubadala Brazil coming off the foils after a close incident with Spain at a downwind gate, strategist Paul Goodison seen hanging from the rig as the boat crashed off the plane. No damage resulted, but it was a sharp reminder of what these boats demand even on a flat-water day.
Where things stand
Four races in, the Bonds Flying Roos and Los Gallos are locked together on 32 points apiece. The US SailGP team sit third, the last of the three qualifying positions for Sunday's winner-takes-all event final. Germany and Northstar are applying pressure from behind. For Emirates GBR, the defending champions, Sunday's fleet racing represents a long road back into contention.
For Kiwi fans, Saturday was largely a day of watching from the sidelines. Peter Burling spent it in the commentary booth rather than on an F50, though he indicated optimism about how much longer that situation would last.
"Things are starting to look really good for Halifax," he said. "Definitely prefer to be out there racing, but it's not looking like too far away now."
The standout New Zealand performance afloat came from Robertson, whose race four result was the high point of the day for anyone flying a silver fern. Artemis, carrying Kiwis Andy Maloney and Brad Farrand, never left the crane after their pre-race mechanical problem, leaving three of New Zealand's best spending the afternoon ashore.
Three more fleet races on Sunday will determine which three teams make the final. Slingsby, Botin and Canfield all arrive with form and momentum behind them. Whether Artemis can have their boat ready overnight, and whether Emirates GBR can rediscover the speed that made them champions, are two of the questions that Sunday will answer.
