SailGP: No practice racing at Portsmouth after breeze is a "no-show"

USA slides past Spitbank Fort - one of several that dot the eastern Solent - SailGP Portsmouth - July 18, 2025 © Richard Gladwell - Sail-World.com / nz

The scheduled Practice Day failed to fire at SailGP Portsmouth, after the forecast, admittedly light, breeze failed to male an appearance.

The planned 90minute practice session was a fizzer, with none of the 12 teams even looking like foiling.

While teams lineup up for a practice start at 1720hrs, the self propelled start marks were making a much better speed than the F50s.

Further west at the other end of the Solent, the breeze was reported to be a 15kt westerly with something similar the other side of the Isle of Wight, which forms the southerly backdrop to the SailGP course.

The day got underway with the opening media conference which followed the script, with no questions taken from the handful of sailing media present.

Sir Ben Ainslie, whose team is backed by Emirates the naming sponsor for SailGP Portsmouth, made a short speech, and then made a quick exit as soon the next group was called to the stage.

The expectation amongst most the sailing media present is that the 38th America's Cup Match will be decided by a Deed of Gift Match sailed off Auckland before Christmas. That being the case, it is not expected that Royal Yacht Squadron, the Challenger of Record, will be represented, as they have no AC75 available the complies with the conditions of the Deed of Gift, save for the 2021 model which is now in the museum at Cowes.

The Media Confereence was followed with a tour of the impressive SailGP Technologies facility in Southampton, as major upgrades and improvements to the F50 fleet are underway.

Two new boats will come on stream for Season 6, with the construction of Boat 14 about a month behind its predessor.

The Southampton facility had its first work out with the construction of a new wingsail for the Australian team following its spectacular dismasting in San Francisco in late March.

The next major move for the F50 is to develop a 27.5metre tall rig, which looks set to replace the 29metre wing damaged by three teams to date.

It would seem that the cause of the dismastings was due to an imbalance of forces, which cannot be rectified and it would seem that the 27.5metre rig is the most viable solution. Due to the way the F50 wingsails are constructed the length increase can be achieved by introducing new middle sections to the rig - in all configurations the top and bottom section remain constant.

No deciison has been made as to whether the 29.5metre rig will remain as an alternative, however SailGP were quick to point out that all changed out pieced were recyclable, and would be repurposed into the new rigs.

New wingsails will be done for all 12 existing boats, and presumably boats 13 & 14. Spares will also be built to avoid some of the compromises that have been necessary in the past couple of seasons.

It is also expected that the L shaped daggerboards, dating back to the AC50 in Bermuda in 2017, will be phased out to be replaced by a higher lift version of the T-foils introduced in Auckland in January. The benefits of the T-foil is that the horizontal wings are changeable around the same vertical, and the F50s are now almost lego-boats.

Racing, wind willing, gets underway off Portsmouth late Saturday afternoon in front of a near-sold out grandstand of 10,000 spectators.