Spain Conquers the Bay Area Again at SailGP San Francisco
SailGP scored a solid weather weekend for the somewhat risky choice of racing the Bay in March. The sun came out, the breeze was steady, and the flood kept the water flat. The sailing was fast. The stadium seating was packed, with many more spectators stretching out from the St. Francis Yacht Club all the way along the Crissy Field beach front.
After seven races and the grand final on Sunday, it was Spain that took home the grand prize, repeating their 2024 title victory on S.F. Bay. Spain’s weekend win was over NorthStar Canada in second and France in third for the three-boat final. There have been five different winners in this season’s five events. Giles Scott and the Canadian team are the rising stars and one of the most consistent new teams throughout the series.
Australia was in the running to make the cut for the three-boat final, but in the seventh race her rig collapsed spectacularly as the boats maneuvered quickly on the starting line. The reason isn’t yet known, but it all came crashing down in a shower of wings, flaps and carbon. Fortunately nobody was hurt, and as the other 10 boats raced to the first turning mark, Australia was left with rescue boats to pick up the pieces.
Despite missing the seventh race and the final in San Francisco, Tom Slingsby and the Australians stayed on top of the 2025 season championship scoreboard, closely followed by Dylan Fletcher and Emirates GBR in second and Diego Botin skippering the Spanish entry.
When the crowd was asked how many people in the stands had also attended the L.A. event, a significant number of hands went up. And there were plenty of flags from all the participating countries.
The American team continued to look very rough, with some dramatic crashes off their foils on Saturday. Sunday’s performance had more consistent, smoother foiling, but the results remained dismal. The US team is trying to polish their performance but was in last place for the weekend and is in 11th place out of 12 for the season. They’ve still got some work to do.
The following video of the Aussies’ collapse was captured by @sailing314
View this post on Instagram
And from a different angle as shared on SailGP’s X.
Wing failure onboard Australia 🤯
Happy to account for no injuries onboard, the cause of the incident is not yet known #SailGP pic.twitter.com/tw0YrZo72O
— SailGP (@SailGP) March 23, 2025
The next races on the schedule include the first event ever in South America with the Enel Rio SailGP event in Brazil on May 3–4, and then back to the Northern Hemisphere with the final US event in New York on June 7–8.
We’ll have more on the California SailGP events in the April edition of Latitude 38 coming out next week. See San Francisco event results here.