{"id":77216,"date":"2026-08-22T20:20:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T20:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/77216\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T20:20:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T20:20:13","slug":"new-zealand-france-put-auckland-sailgp-crash-in-rearview-with-good-start-in-germany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/77216\/","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand, France put Auckland SailGP crash in rearview with good start in Germany"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note:\u00a0This story is part of\u00a0The Athletic\u2019s coverage of SailGP, an international sailing competition that has been likened to Formula 1 on water. Follow SailGP\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

SASSNITZ, Germany \u2014 It has been a long road back for two teams caught up in a nasty crash in Auckland six months ago, but the opening day of the Germany Sail Grand Prix suggests New Zealand and France are returning to their peak form.<\/p>\n

The two boats held the top two spots in their group after Saturday\u2019s qualifying races, with the French just one point behind New Zealand\u2019s Black Foils following a record-breaking day on the Baltic Sea.<\/p>\n

When the wind blows as strongly off the shore as it did Saturday in Sassnitz \u2014 average 19 knots wind speed with peak gusts of 23 knots \u2014 it\u2019s no guarantee every team will advance through a hectic afternoon of qualifying. The F50 catamarans always run at the edge of control in such gusty, squally conditions.<\/p>\n

Even during the practice session, as crowds filled up the shoreside bleachers, teams broke the record for fastest speed in an F50. The Baltic\u2019s low-salinity water reduces hydrodynamic resistance for the high-speed foils. And within a matter of minutes on Saturday, Germany, Brazil and the British pushed the new top speed up to 56.6 knots in succession.<\/p>\n

Once the racing began, Quentin Delapierre and the French drove that number up to 58.1 knots. It was a 2-knot increase on the record previously set by Denmark (56.1 knots) a year ago on the very same waters. Even so, Delapierre was less excited by the record than by putting together a solid day of results in the seven-boat Group A, including victory in the second of France\u2019s three heats.<\/p>\n

Delapierre clicked instantly with his new wing trimmer, British sailor Leigh McMillan, at the start of the season. McMillan came over from Brazil at the end of 2025, but suffered a severe shoulder injury in the team\u2019s Auckland crash. Delapierre struggled to replicate the same form with McMillan\u2019s replacements in the cockpit, but with McMillan back in the boat and healed, positive results are showing up.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeigh joined us quite late yesterday due to personal reasons, so we were just focusing on making sure he had full confidence on board and came back at full throttle with the team,\u201d Delapierre told The Athletic. \u201cHe had an unbelievable day, and the guys on board were fantastic. I\u2019m super happy with how the day set up the fleet for tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n The New Zealand SailGP team driven by Peter Burling races through the water during the first day of the Germany Sail Grand Prix in Sassnitz on Saturday. (Ricardo Pinto \/ SailGP)<\/p>\n

After a roller-coaster year for the French since their crash in Auckland, Delapierre said he remains focused on what needs to be done on the water.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really get caught up in the emotion,\u201d Delapierre said. \u201cI just focus on our process and accept the situation for what it is. Leigh had six months of recovery; you can\u2019t do anything about that.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just have to be patient, keep going with the preparation, hold your process, and ensure that when everyone is back, we can face the rest of the season with confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

New Zealand and Pete Burling came out on top in Friday\u2019s light air practice session, then followed that up with the top showing among the 13 boats on the water amid Saturday\u2019s strong winds. It\u2019s been quite the showing for a team that missed the middle four months of the SailGP season while they waited for a brand new F50, Manawat\u012bt\u012b, to be built in Southampton in the south of England.<\/p>\n

Burling thrives in the rough stuff, and he is lapping up the challenge of driving Manawat\u012bt\u012b around the Sassnitz race track.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve always really enjoyed the stronger conditions, especially when it\u2019s dynamic, and there\u2019s plenty going on across the racetrack,\u201d he told The Athletic. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to pick your way through rather than it just being a straight boat-speed race to the corners.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Group B, Australia racked up two race wins which, despite a last-place finish in its final heat, was sufficient to put Tom Slingsby\u2019s Flying Roos atop their six-boat leaderboard.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrustrating,\u201d Slingsby said, \u201cbecause I thought we were off to a good start. I was thinking it would be nice to go in with three wins today, but instead, we ended up last in the final race. A frustrating finish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rather than launching out of the start line into clear air, Slingsby suffered in the pack and couldn\u2019t get past the United States, suggesting that American driver Taylor Canfield could have sailed the boat differently.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had the U.S. team underneath us (in the leeward position), and they just never wanted to accelerate,\u201d Slingsby said. \u201cI think they thought if they accelerated, we\u2019d stay high, but we were doing 15 knots slower than our target boat speed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would have just pressed and gone with them, but they just wanted to match race us, and we ended up both getting dragged to the back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s loss in the last Group B race was Germany\u2019s gain. Erik Kosegarten-Heil said he wanted the home event to help the German team turn around a frustrating season. Despite the cheers of a supportive crowd, the Germans stuttered in the first two races but finally came good at the end of the session. They were fast out of the start and sailed a commanding race to score an important, morale-boosting victory.<\/p>\n

The usually unflappable Spanish struggled with some marginal moves. Expensive penalties put Diego Botin on the back foot, yet Los Gallos were back to their buccaneering best in the last race of the afternoon. A much-needed victory put Spain in third place in Group A, which means the boar could still qualify for the four-boat final on Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The points are so tightly bunched in Group B that any of the six boats \u2014 Australia, Sweden, Canada, Britain, Germany and USA \u2014 could still grab the two spots from their side. With the wind set to blow hard again in Sassnitz, it will be equally shifty and gusty, and the opportunities to win are wide open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor\u2019s note:\u00a0This story is part of\u00a0The Athletic\u2019s coverage of SailGP, an international sailing competition that has been likened…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5,15007,38464],"class_list":["post-77216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-germany","tag-germany","tag-global-sports","tag-sailing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}