Debriefing the Oracle San Francisco Sail Grand Prix, 2028 Vendee Globe news, GL52s
by David Schmidt 26 Mar 02:00 AEDT
March 25, 2025
Spain SailGP Team helmed by Diego Botin celebrate on stage with Barons De Rothschild Champagne after they win the Oracle San Francisco Sail Grand Prix © Jed Jacobsohn for SailGP
One of the coolest aspects of SailGP's fifth season of racing has been the rotating cast of characters who have been reaching the podium's top step. Season 5 kicked off in Dubai in November, with the New Zealand SailGP Team taking top honors. This was followed in January in Auckland, where the Australia SailGP Team proved themselves to be the fastest gun. Then, in February in Sydney, it was Emirates Great Britain SailGP Team's turn on top, followed in early March by the Canadian-flagged NorthStar SailGP's win in Los Angeles.
This past weekend in San Francisco it was the Spain SailGP Team's time to shine, taking two bullets in the event's seven fleet races and winning the all-important Final.
For Spain, this win hits a bit of a historical harmonic, as the team won SailGP's Season 4 championship title on these same waters last July.
"It feels amazing to win," said Spain's strategist, Nicole van der Velden, in a SailGP communication. "We were feeling quite confident with how we were sailing and how we were starting, so super happy to finish it off well in the Final. It's great to get two-for-two in San Francisco. Now, a little bit of celebration and back to focus for the next event."
Spain was joined on the winner's podium of the Oracle San Francisco Sail Grand Prix by the NorthStar SailGP and the France SailGP teams, both of whom sailed great regattas and earned at least one bullet apiece (the Canadians claimed two wins).
While podium rotation can be seen as a strong sign that the league is maturing and that all teams are becoming more competitive (case-in-point: the Switzerland SailGP Team won Fleet Race 5), it's important to note that the Australia SailGP Team suffered a dismasting just before the start of the final fleet race.
"We were coming into the start, we were looking for a gap and we realized there wasn't going to be one, so we conceded and turned up," said Slingsby in an official SailGP report. "I don't really know what happened, but my guess is that the wing failed right at that moment that we turned up sharply.
"We've just got to go and look at all the camera angles," Slingsby continued. "It was obviously close with the boats, but we need to determine if it was a wing failure or something else at play—did we make an error?"
The team was fortunate that no one was hurt, but their broken wing robbed the Aussies of the chance to earn points in Fleet Race 7 and meant that they were out of the Final, despite posting solid results in the first six races (this included two second-place finishes and a pair of third-place finishes).
While this was obviously sour news for skipper Tom Slingsby and his teammates, other teams—including the French, the Swiss, the Italians, and the Brazilians—posted strong results and earned important leaderboard points.
Unfortunately for American interests, the United States SailGP Team continued to struggle on San Francisco Bay. The team's best results from the weekend were an eighth-place finish in Fleet Race 6, plus a pair of ninth-place finishes in Fleet Races 3 and 4, and the team finish the event in last place.
"We didn't get the result we wanted here," said Hans Henken, the American team's flight controller. "We put in a lot of work leading into San Francisco-a lot of those things are going on behind the scenes but the results don't show it. Obviously, we need to go back and put more work into it. The story is not over, we're continuing to push really hard."
After five Season 5 events, the Australia SailGP Team is currently topping the leaderboard with 39 points, closely followed by the Emirates Great Britain SailGP Team (38 points) and the Spain SailGP Team (36 points). The fourth-place New Zealand SailGP Team (35 points) is also putting pressure on the leaders, as are the Canadians (34 points).
The next SailGP event, the Enel Rio Sail Grand Prix, is set to unfurl on the waters off of Rio de Janeiro from May 3-4, followed about a month later by the Mubadala New York Sail Grand Prix (June 7-8).
Then, the league will jump the Pond with events in the UK (July 19-20), Germany (August 16-17), France (September 12-13), Switzerland (September 20-21), and Spain (October 4-5), before returning to the Middle East for the Mubadala Abu Dhabi Sail Grand Prix 2025 Season Grand Final (November 29-30).
So, with a tightly packed leaderboard and eight more events set to unfurl this season, count on plenty of tight racing to come as the league foils their way toward the Season 5 Grand Final.
Meanwhile, the dust has barely settled on the 2024-2025 Vendée Globe, but contenders are already emerging for the 2028-2029 edition of this storied singlehanded nonstop circumnavigation race.
Last week news broke that skipper Francesca Clapcich, who is sponsored by 11th Hour Racing, acquired skipper Boris Herrmann's 2022 VPLP-designed IMOCA 60 Malizia-Seaexplorer and plans to devote the next year or so to qualifying for the next edition of the Vendée Globe.
Clapcich, it should be noted, won the 2022-2023 edition of The Ocean Race aboard 11th Hour Racing, competed in the 2017-2018 edition of race (then called the Volvo Ocean Race), and served on the crew of the NYYC American Magic Women in the 2024 Puig Women's America's Cup. Additionally, Clapcich, who was born in Italy but became a U.S. citizen in 2024, competed in the 2012 London Olympics in the Women's Laser Radial class (now called the ILCA 6 class), and at the 2016 Rio Olympics in the 49erFX class for Italy.
Provided that Clapcich qualifies for the Vendée Globe (our fingers are crossed for her and her team!), she will become the first sailor to have competed in sailing's four biggest events—the America's Cup, the Olympics, The Ocean Race, and the Vendée Globe.
"To have 11th Hour Racing's trust in me is an incredible honor," said Clapcich. "Sailing has shaped my life in so many ways, and this partnership allows me to give back—to the sport, to future generations, and to the ocean itself. 11th Hour Racing's commitment to sustainability and social progress is truly inspiring, and I'm excited to work alongside them to create lasting change, on and off the water."
Finally, in inshore news, Victor Wild's Fox team won the inaugural running of the GL52 Pensacola Cup (March 20-23), winning five out of the regatta's 11 races. They were joined on the winner's podium by Peter Askew's Wizard team, and by Doug DeVos's Windquest squad.
The GL52 fleet's next event, dubbed the GL52 Southern Showdown, is set to unfurl on Pensacola Bay from April 10-13, before heading north to the Great Lakes for five events between July and October.
May the four winds blow you safely home.
David Schmidt
Sail-World.com North American Editor