With the oldest boat in the SailGP fleet, the Spanish team are due an upgrade of their F50 catamaran later this season. However, after consistently foiling more than the rest of the fleet on day one of the Sydney Grand Prix, maybe Diego Botin should keep ‘old faithful’ a bit longer.
Sitting at the top of the leaderboard after four races on Sydney Harbour, the Spanish skipper told The Athletic: “The most thing we want is a reliable boat and today the boat felt good.”
The ‘Los Gallos’ team have been plagued with technical problems with their boat so far this season, both in Perth and Auckland, but today the bright red boat — more than any other — was capable of foiling through the light and treacherous patches on an ever-shifting race course.
Today’s conditions were a far cry — and a welcome change of pace — from the wildly windy and sometimes dangerous conditions of Perth and Auckland. Following the big crash in Auckland between New Zealand and France, those two teams are absent from action on Sydney Harbour, with the remaining 11 teams left to do battle with each other.
For the first time, SailGP was trialling twilight racing, with the competition window open between 5.30pm and 7pm, not long before sunset. As the sun went down, so did the wind strength.
Australia were fast out of the blocks in the opening race, all the more heart-warming for the partisan crowd in Sydney because this marked the race debut of Iain ‘Goobs’ Jensen aboard the Bonds Flying Roos.
Having departed the British team after helping Dylan Fletcher’s crew to season victory last November in Abu Dhabi, Goobs had been looking forward to sailing for his home country. But a severe knee injury during a windy day of training in Perth at the start of the year put the Olympic gold medallist out of action for more than a month.
Skipper Tom Slingsby was delighted to have Goobs on board at last. “I worry for Goobs just as a mate,” Slingsby told The Athletic, concerned but encouraged by the speed of his recovery. “There’s a lot of armchair critics who were saying it’s too early for him to come back but Goobs kept saying the knee felt good. And of course the lighter winds made it a bit easier for him to step on board today.”
Slingsby admitted that broadcast commentator Stevie Morrison’s comment: “Tom Slingsby — he’s either fast, or last,” was a reasonable reflection of the Roos’ day. “That’s very fair actually, much as I hate to hear it,” he laughed wryly. The Aussies won the first of the four heats and won the last heat of the day, but between those two victories Slingsby and crew had to grind out some come-back results after finding themselves way at the back off the sometimes windless start line near Shark Island.
“We had two very average races, but I’m really pleased how we managed to pull back from some tough positions,” he said. The Aussies sit in second overall, four points back from the Spanish lead.
While Canada suffered a horrible day, seemingly unable to keep the boat on the foils through the lighter patches of breeze, the points remain really tight across the rest of the fleet. Even Nicolai Sehested and the Danish team down in 10th place are within striking distance of the podium if they can put together some good results on Sunday.
With lighter winds forecast for Sunday, the tech team are going to be busy all night upgrading the 24m wing rigs to the largest in the SailGP quiver, the 27.5m wing. The previous and only time these massive wings have been used was at the 2025 season finale in the soft breeze of Abu Dhabi. After a horrible opening day, Sehested and the Danes might draw some comfort that they dominated the fleet racing in Abu Dhabi on the big wing.
There is plenty yet to fight for on Sydney Harbour.