Editor’s note: This story is part of The Athletic’s coverage of SailGP, an international sailing competition that has been likened to Formula 1 on water. Follow SailGP here.
If any team deserved to break the dominant run of Australian victories in SailGP, it’s Los Gallos, the Spanish crew led by Diego Botin. Racing in front of a crowded waterfront in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the Spanish pulled out all the stops to win the final of the Canada Sail Grand Prix.
This was the first time there has been a four-boat final in SailGP — a departure from the usual three-boat climax that has determined the outcome of league events since its inception in 2019. This was also the first time to see the F50 catamarans racing not as one massed fleet but divided into two groups. Sunday’s competition started with a continuation of the group racing from Saturday, and for the 13 teams, it was all about making sure they qualified through to the final.
Out of Group A, it was Australia and Spain who fought through. In Group B, that honor went to Sweden and Switzerland. It was pretty much neck and neck between the four boats out of a very competitive start, but Spain’s trigger-pull was marginally better. Switzerland dropped out of contention on the first lap, and some “hit and hope” tactical moves by Australia saw Tom Slingsby lose contact with the lead. But Nathan Outteridge drove the Swedish boat hard around the track, pushing Botin all the way to the finish. Spain held on for the win, its first of the season. Sweden was second, and Switzerland managed to edge its way past Australia for third place and its first podium since Portsmouth almost a year ago.
It couldn’t get ANY better than this 👌
The first ever 4 boat final in #SailGP history 🤝 pic.twitter.com/z6U0L1xvvV
— SailGP (@SailGP) June 21, 2026
Spain ‘threads the needle’ in heart-stopping start
Botin knew he’d have to pull a rabbit out of a hat to get past New Zealand for the second qualifying spot from Group A. In the final few seconds of a crowded start line, Botin went for a gap that barely existed. With Australia to windward and France behind and to leeward, Botin “threaded the needle” and charged through to execute a high-speed launch. It put Los Gallos into the lead at Mark 1 and resulted in a vital race win.
“It was a massive risk,” Botin told The Athletic. “We were depending on the French to come a little late, and we’re just 0.0 time-to-kill to the line. So yeah, a big risk. To be honest, I was going through the line with my eyes almost closed because I didn’t know if we were going to be over the line early. Sometimes to win in SailGP, you need to take risks.”
Asked if he would do it again, Botin hesitated. “It was really on the edge,” he said. “We could very easily have been on the other side of the balance. I hope we don’t have to take risks like that too often.”
Australia’s run comes to an end
All good things must come to an end, and it’s staggering that Australia’s run of dominance went as long as it did. After bombing out of its home event in Sydney, Slingsby and company dominated the Americas across the past three events in Rio de Janeiro, Bermuda and New York. The way the Bonds Flying Roos performed across the weekend in Halifax, they deserved to win a fourth event. But as good as they were in the group racing, they were uncharacteristically off their game in the final.
“We did not sail a lifted attack in that whole last lap,” Slingsby told The Athletic. “We made a few mistakes in that last one and sailed quite poorly. We felt we deserved better after the way we had sailed in the fleet racing, but in the end, we got the result we deserved.”
Britain and Brazil crash out
With the Black Foils from New Zealand returning to competition for the first time since their disastrous crash with France at the Auckland event in February, this was the first time in a while that SailGP had all 13 boats on the start line. But not all 13 made it to the end of the weekend. The British boat crashed out of racing during the practice session early Sunday afternoon.
Oh no! 😬
A HUGE nosedive for Emirates GBR which rules them out of Super Sunday in Halifax 😭 Glad to report all athletes onboard are okay!#SailGP pic.twitter.com/BahA784fjj
— SailGP (@SailGP) June 21, 2026
“We were just doing our typical warm-up laps, and in a bear-away around the top mark, we lost the rudders, and the boat spun round out of control into the gybe and broke the wing,” driver Dylan Fletcher said. “We need to look into exactly what happened, but ultimately, we lost the rudders. Likely three flaps on the wing broken, and the wheel broke as well, but all sailors were safe.”
Meanwhile, Brazil was racing with its new setup at the back of the boat — with British sailor Paul Goodison taking over the driving role while Brazilian Olympic star Martine Grael stepped into the strategy position. The Brazilians went for a tight gap at one of the leeward marks, trying to get ahead of Canada. But Giles Scott closed the door on Brazil, with Goodison clipping the turning mark with the tip of his windward foil below the surface. That was the end of the Brazilians’ competition for the weekend.
Rousing reception from Halifax
After the bright lights of New York City a few weeks earlier, the cozy atmosphere of Halifax was far different. Scott, the skipper of the Canadian team, loved soaking up the warm welcome from the temporary stadium and the estimated 6,000 spectators lining the waterfront.
“The grandstand was pumping,” he said, “and with all the effort that goes into our comms system to keep outside noise out, we could still hear them. It was amazing and still pretty strange to be a sailor and racing in front of a stadium. Here in Halifax, you go into a random coffee shop and everyone knows about SailGP, and everyone’s a fan.”
Which prompts the question: Are smaller cities like Halifax more important to SailGP’s future than the likes of New York or San Francisco? The answer is probably not. Having a combination of the headline cities, racing in front of the Statue of Liberty, and more intimate venues like Halifax is probably the right way to go.