SailGP’s fifth season culminated in style on Sunday in Abu Dhabi with Dylan Fletcher’s British Emirates GBR crew taking the two-million-dollar prize pot after getting the better of Tom Slingsby’s Australian Flying Roos and Peter Burling’s New Zealand Black Foils in what was surely the most exciting three-way winner-takes-all Grand Final the international high-performance sailing league has produced.
Earlier in the day Nicolai Sehested’s Danish ROCKWOOL Racing had managed to claim the team’s first-ever event win when they closed out the six-race fleet race series with a massive 14-point advantage. The Danes’ win comes hot on the heels of the major announcement earlier in the weekend of ROCKWOOL’s renewal of the commitment to SailGP through until 2032.
Also celebrating will be Kiwi helmsman Phil Robertson whose debut on the wheel of Red Bull Italy appeared to electrify the Italian crew who delivered their season-best performance to finish second overall in Abu Dhabi.
Much of the attention during the six fleet races was on whether last year’s Grand Final winners, Diego Botin’s Spanish Los Gallos, could somehow manage to dislodge the Flying Roos from third place and open up a chance of pulling off a repeat victory in Season 5. In the end, though, it was not to be as the wily Slingsby targeted the Spanish throughout Saturday to prevent them from closing down the required four-point delta.
Although Saturday’s drifting conditions raised plenty of ire from passionate SailGP fans on social media who complained about the choice of a predominantly light-air venue like Abu Dhabi to host the league’s most important event, Sunday delivered a couple of clicks more wind velocity and that proved enough to get the boats up and foiling for the remaining two fleet races and the Grand Final.
It’s worth noting at this juncture that it is only because of SailGP’s constant evolution of the F50 catamaran fleet’s foils, rudders, and rigs over this latest season that any meaningful racing took place at all in breezes that struggled to touch 10 knots over the weekend.
Sailing fans will of course always want regattas to be held in venues like San Francisco where windy conditions can reasonably be expected. However, for an expensive commercial venture like SailGP, the funding received from sponsors like the Abu Dhabi state-owned Mubadala Investment Company is critical to the league’s success – and it is not unreasonable for them to want a hometown event.
Fortunately for all concerned, the 2025 Grand Final was so exciting that nobody will remember any of the racing that went before it this weekend. Tom Slingsby got the upper hand at the start and was first on to the foils to lead at the first turning mark and around the right-hand (looking upwind) leeward gate mark. However the Kiwis and the British were hot on their heels and chose to split to the left-hand leeward gate mark. A fluffed tack from the Australians coming off the starboard boundary saw them put both hulls in the water and their lead evaporated instantly.
There was precious little in it at the windward gate with Burling leading narrowly around the left-hand mark followed by the Aussies, while Fletcher managed to skillfully thread the British boat around Slingsby’s stern to round the right-hand mark at speed.
That proved to be the winning move as the British quickly hooked into fresh pressure and a right-hand shift on the right hand boundary to make a massive jump on their rivals over on the left. From that point on there was little the two antipodean crews could do to challenge the Fletcher & Co. who sailed impeccably to round the leeward gate with a huge lead.
The cheering from the three-person British crew – helmsman Dylan Fletcher, wing trimmer Iain Jensen, and strategist/grinder Hannah Mills – began as the red boat’s bows turned down to round the final turn mark. When they crossed the line, it was all hugs between the trio as the delight and relief of closing out a superb season began to sink in, while behind them the Australians managed to edge past the Kiwis on the final leg to the finish.
Happily SailGP fans will not have too long to wait before Season 6 gets under way in Perth Australia over the weekend of January 17–18, with further events in Auckland, New Zealand; Sydney, Australia; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Bermuda; New York, USA; Halifax, Canada; Portsmouth, UK; Sassnitz, Germany; Spain (tbc); Saint-Tropez, France; and two United Arab Emirates events: one in Dubai and the Season 6 Grand Final in Abu Dhabi.
And with more top-name transfers expected during the closed season and the addition of a thirteenth team in the form of the Swedish Artemis Racing – which will see the return of Australian Nathan Outteridge to the circuit – there is certainly plenty to look forward to in the coming season as SailGP appears to go from strength to strength.
