Hi everyone and a happy new year to all our readers around the world...
We kick 2026 off with American Magic’s announcement of the completion of its high-performance and innovation centre in Pensacola, Florida and its new partnership with SailGP which will see the league use the new facility as a long-term training base for teams to hone their F50 catamaran skills.
As welcome as this week’s news was, many people were also expecting American Magic to announce two more major initiatives: an entry in the Youth and Women’s America’s Cup at AC38; American Magic’s participation in SailGP by way of a partnership/collaboration with an existing SailGP team.
Over at Sail-World, Richard Gladwell went as far as to name Denmark’s ROCKWOOL Racing as the target team for American Magic’s advances. The Danish team’s title partner – the leading international building materials manufacturer ROCKWOOL Group – recently renewed its partnership through to the end of 2032 – making it the league's longest-standing team sponsor deal.
Danish skipper Nicolai Sehested has done plenty of sailing with American Magic co-founder Doug DeVos aboard his various Windquest yachts over the years and the relationship is believed to be a good one. Just how such a deal would work in real terms – if indeed the rumours are true – very much remains to be seen, but with the first event of SailGP Season 6 about to happen next weekend in Perth in Australia, hopefully we will hear something very soon.
An American Magic entry in the next Youth and Women’s America’s Cup makes perfect sense and would align perfectly with the organisation’s overall long-term vision to create a sustainable, high-performance American sailing platform. Fingers crossed for that rumour to come true as quickly as possible.
The Sail-World story also references the oft-speculated-about idea of a fourteenth SailGP. Supposedly this will be run by Athena Racing with backing from the United Arab Emirates and led by British double Olympic Gold medalist Hannah Mills – currently strategist on the SailGP team Emirates GBR, the Season 5 Grand Final winners.
The rumour mill suggests this would be an all-women crew – and there's a lot of obvious appeal to that – but whether such an entry is possible in time for the Perth event is unclear. SailGP had previously said the boat believed to be under construction would be used as a training boat.
However, with the American Magic SailGP training programme not scheduled to open until September, perhaps plans have changed yet again and we could have 14 teams on the water at some point during Season 6.
Era of F1 / America’s Cup cross-pollination comes to an end
Meanwhile, there has been confirmation – as if it was really needed – from the Mercedes Formula 1 team that their dalliance with the America’s Cup is well and truly over.
Speaking to Forbes recently, the organisation’s team principal Toto Wolff said: “We don’t want to do this anymore. We’re a Formula 1 racing team. We don’t want to go sailing. We don’t want to do any other sports. Complete focus [must be] on only Formula 1.”
At the 37th America’s Cup, INEOS Britannia-backer Sir Jim Ratcliffe leveraged his part ownership in the Mercedes F1 operation to create a close technical partnership between his sailing team and the design and engineering boffins at the company’s head office in Brackley, England.
From a sailing standpoint the tie-up appeared to be a major success, with Mercedes’ input credited by many pundits as a major contributor to Sir Ben Ainslie’s crew winning the Louis Vuitton Challenger Series and making it into the 38th America’s Cup Match.
Whether Wolff’s about-face will mean the end of other F1 teams partnering with America’s Cup campaigns too is yet to be established. At AC37 Swiss challenger Alinghi teamed up with Red Bull Racing and reportedly had access to the motorsport behemoth’s technical resources. Alinghi recently confirmed an entry into the 38th America’s Cup, but without Red Bull Racing.
Read more about the Mercedes announcement here.
A storming debut
Last year Andrea Lacorte won the owner-driver title in his first 52 Super Series season, powered by Doyle Sails – and with four Doyle sailmakers on board.
The 2025 52 Super Series season reaffirmed the intensity and high-level competition of the class with 12 of the 13 teams scoring at least one race win and nine posting two bullets or more.
Class veteran Doug De Vos bowed out in style with his seventh championship title. But, as one class stalwart quit the stage, a newcomer to this high-octane circuit turned heads with an outstanding first season.
In the season-long standings, Italian Andrea Lacorte and his Alkedo Powered By Vitamina team won the owner-driver title and finished fourth overall in the star-studded fleet.
It was an astonishing result for a debutante team. With total respect for a class brimming with America’s Cup and top ocean racing talent, Lacorte’s rookie season ambitions were kept well in check.
‘My goal was just to finish above the last two places, somewhere around the middle of the fleet,’ Lacorte admits. ‘What actually happened was far beyond expectation.’
Giles Scott on NorthStar's path forward
We catch up with Giles Scott, skipper of the Canadian NorthStar SailGP team, as the British double Olympic gold medallist reflects on his up and down first year in charge and shares some of the team's plans for Season 6.
Giles Scott’s first season as skipper of the NorthStar SailGP team saw the Canadian-flagged syndicate close out 2025 in sixth place overall. Not a disastrous result, for sure, but the British double Olympic medallist says the team set its sights on becoming a top tier contender on the international circuit in the long term.
There’s no denying the Canadian team had its fair share of highs and lows in Season 5. After starting with a sixth in the opening event in Dubai, a pre-race high-speed nosedive on the second day in Auckland saw Canadian flight controller Billy Gooderham hospitalised and prevented the team from any racing on the Sunday.
However, this crushing disappointment was soon forgotten after the NorthStar crew bounced back with a string of event final appearances, including a second place in Sydney, an overall victory in Los Angeles, and another second place in San Francisco. I was there for the third of those regattas and I can vouch first-hand for the fact that the Canadian crew looked for all the world like Season 5 title contenders at that event...
2026 RORC Transatlantic Race fleet assembles in Lanzarote
The 2026 RORC Transatlantic Race starts from Marina Lanzarote this Sunday and will see 21 teams take on the 3,000 nautical-mile voyage west across the Atlantic to Antigua – writes Louay Habib.
The event forms not only the start but also a highlight of the 2026 global offshore racing calendar and is supported by key stakeholders including: Calero Marinas and the Antigua and Barbuda Tourism Authority, with trophies across multiple classes and line honours prizes on offer.
RORC Transatlantic Start Details
Sunday 11 January 2026 - Monohulls will line up for the start off Lanzarote’s capital Arrecife at 1230 UTC+0, followed by multihulls at 1240. All boats must round a turning mark off Puerto Calero before heading into the Atlantic Ocean. The fleet is composed of cutting-edge monohulls, high-performance multihulls, performance cruisers and smaller offshore racers.
Crew representing 19 nations from around the world will be racing with a wide range of goals, targets and ambitions. While the fastest boats could complete the race in less than 7 days, the smaller boats may take more than two weeks to race to Antigua.
The prestigious RORC Transatlantic Race Trophy is awarded to the overall winner on IRC corrected time, the benchmark measure of offshore racing throughout the world. In addition to overall honours, the IMA Transatlantic Trophy is awarded to the first maxi yacht to finish, and the Multihull Line Honours Trophy goes to the fastest multihull on elapsed time.
What's happening with the 38th America's Cup?
PlanetSail's Matt Sheahan shares his personal thoughts on the current state of play in the 38th America's Cup.
SailGP Season 6 preview
2026 is here and the first event of SailGP Season 6 in Perth, Australia is under a fortnight away. There will be 13 F50s on the start line for the first time ever and each and every team will aiming to make a strong start to the year.
Here's my alphabetical team-by-team run through of the Season 6 lineup and my best guess assessment of their potential performances over the coming year.
2025 World Match Racing Tour Final: Champions collide as semi final teams are confirmed
Day 4 at the WMRT Final Shenzhen Baoan for the 2025 Match Racing World Championship saw the final four skippers emerge from a challenging and hard fought quarterfinals in light and unpredictable airs.
Defending world champion Ian Williams/GBR and his Manuport by Logistics team lead the semi-final pack alongside USA’s Chris Poole/Riptide Racing, Nick Egnot-Johnson – NZL/Knots Racing, and Sweden’s Oscar Engström/ Team Liros.
Today’s quarterfinals schedule was underway early with each of the eight teams looking for the first-to-three points to grab their slot in the semi-finals.
As the day started in a light breeze, all four quarterfinals were locked at one win apiece, with the exception of defending world champion Ian Williams/GBR, who edged a commanding 2–0 lead over Australia’s Cole Tapper and his Kairos Racing team.
Alfa Romeo unveils the limited edtion 'Giulia Quadrifoglio Luna Rossa'
The new limited series inspired by the Italian America’s Cup AC75 makes its world premiere at the 2026 Brussels Motor Show
RORC Transatlantic Race: Inside the minds of the navigators
Three elite strategists explain to RORC communications manager Louay Habib how they are reading the Atlantic racecourse for the upcoming 2026 RORC Transatlantic Race.
RORC Race Officer Chris Jackson sets the scene for the weather outlook, setting the strategic backdrop for the 2026 RORC Transatlantic Race:
“On current forecasts the weather outlook for the RORC Transatlantic Race this year is looking good,” commented Chris Jackson who has raced across the Atlantic eight times.
“The trade winds look well established so we would be hopeful for a good fast race for the fleet. The start on Sunday 11 January looks like there will hopefully be around 10 knots of breeze, maybe increasing through the afternoon slightly. The fleet will have all options open for their course after rounding the laid mark off Puerto Calero Marina, but they should expect a lighter-wind exit from the Canary Islands, transitioning into steadier trade-wind conditions once clear.
“The forecasts are showing the potential for some isolated squall activity; this will obviously need to be monitored by the fleet. The course is looking like a VMG run most of the time, this could mean that a lot of the fleet will stick closer to the rhumb line rather than diving a long way south towards the Cape Verde Islands.”
In the RORC Transatlantic Race, raw speed matters, but navigation decides outcomes. Over three thousand nautical miles, success is shaped by decisions made long before the start gun fires and refined hour by hour as the fleet transitions from the Canary Islands into the trade winds and into the wide blue yonder.
For the 2026 edition, some of the most experienced navigators in offshore sailing will be plotting those decisions aboard radically different platforms, each with its own strengths, limitations and opportunities.
Now with more power
Two-speed and three-speed electric versions of Ronstan's Orbit winch are now available.
When Ronstan combined the high-quality internal componentry of Andersen Winches with their own hi-tech, forward-thinking approach to hardware, the result was the Orbit range of lightweight alloy winches. This design scooped a joint category win in the 2023 DAME Awards thanks to its innovative QuickTrim self-tailer, which enables lines to be eased instantly without removing the rope from the self-tailing jaws or removing the handle – a stand-out innovation when it comes to fine-tune adjustments.
With E1 single-speed electric options already available, Ronstan’s most recent development sees the two largest Orbit models, the two-speed and three speed 45QT and 50QT, now available as E2 two-speed electric versions. Conversion kits are available for existing units...
