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Sailing News for March 13, 2026

America’s Cup teams are quietly getting back to work, with Emirates Team New Zealand relaunching their repurposed AC75 Taihoro in Auckland sporting a stripped-down crew setup and subtle control tweaks as testing ramps up again, while Ben Ainslie’s GB1 squad has also returned to the water in Cagliari for their first shakedown sail before pushing harder through the week. SailGP meanwhile is heading somewhere spectacular, revealing a Rio race stadium set against Sugarloaf Mountain that should turn April’s event into one of the loudest stops on the calendar. Offshore racing delivered its usual brutality in France where Paul Morvan secured his first Figaro Championship solo win after a windy, sleep-starved week, and British sailor Jasmine Harrison completed a remarkable 26,000 mile solo circumnavigation in a 19 foot plywood boat. Add in foiling drama in Cádiz where Noah Lyons dominated iQFOiL qualifying, plus a clever DIY carbon spinnaker pole project, and today’s sailing reminder is simple: innovation and stubborn determination still drive the sport forward

Sail GP/America’s Cup

America’s Cup Recon: Emirates Team NZ’s Black Friday launch (3 min read)
Emirates Team New Zealand quietly rolled their repurposed AC75 back into the water in Auckland, giving Cup watchers their first look since Barcelona. The boat, now called Taihoro, is running a stripped-down setup with just five sailors plus a spectator seat, and one of the old crew “fox holes” has been sealed off. Most changes are subtle, though there’s a new hydraulic mainsheet control that could hint at tweaks under the hood. The team headed straight to their usual training patch off Browns Island, where the real testing begins.

SailGP Reveals Race Stadium for Rio’s First Ever South American Event (2 min read)
SailGP is heading to South America for the first time, and the Rio venue looks ridiculous in the best way. The April 11–12 event will drop the F50 fleet right in front of Sugarloaf Mountain with Christ the Redeemer watching from above. Fans will sit inside the Race Stadium grandstands, basically right on the finish line as the boats blast past at full speed. It’s also a home game for Martine Grael and the Brazil team, which should make the atmosphere loud. Three events into the season with three different winners, so Rio could shake things up again.

GB1 Back On the Water in Cagliari (2 min read)
Ben Ainslie’s GB1 squad is back on the water, kicking off their latest campaign with a shakedown sail in Cagliari. Dylan Fletcher reported classic Mediterranean conditions: 12–15 knots, a bit of chop, and plenty of sunshine. The outing was mostly about recommissioning the boat and making sure everything works after time out of the water. Nothing too spicy yet, but it’s the first step before the team starts pushing harder through the week. Early days, but the British crew looks happy to be back flying again.

Inshore & Offshore Racing

Solo Guy Cotten 2026: Paul Morvan takes the overall victory after a hard-fought race (5 min read)
Paul Morvan just grabbed his first solo win in the French Figaro Championship at the Solo Guy Cotten, and he did it the hard way. The week threw everything at the fleet: big breeze, messy seas, and a shortened but still brutal 240-mile race. Morvan stayed glued to the front pack all week, then finished the final offshore leg less than a minute behind Loïs Berrehar, which was enough to lock up the overall win. With 25 to 30 knots under spinnaker and barely any sleep, it was classic Figaro chaos.

Record-breaking sailor completes solo global trip (4 min read)
British adventurer Jasmine Harrison just sailed 26,000 nautical miles solo around the world… in a 19-foot plywood boat. The 26-year-old completed the Mini Globe Race in 381 days aboard Numbatou, crossing four oceans and stopping in 15 countries along the way. Alongside dodging headwinds and living on minimal sleep, she also swam 30 miles around St Helena during a stopover because apparently sailing the planet wasn’t enough. Only 11 of the 15 racers finished, and Harrison is now the first British woman to pull off the feat in a boat that small.

Olympic Class/Dinghy Sailing

What to Expect at RS Games 2026 | Live from RYA Dinghy Show (2 min read)
The RS Games are back in 2026, and this time the whole circus is heading to Germany. The once-every-four-years RS mega event will run July 16–26 during the famous Travemünder Woche, bringing sailors from around the world together for 10 days of racing and social chaos. Expect 12 RS classes, 13 championships, and a few legendary parties mixed in with the sailing. If you sail an RS boat, this is basically your Olympics.

Tech & Gear

How to make a carbon fibre spinnaker pole (6 min read)
One Contessa 32 owner looked at the £2,500 price tag for a carbon spinnaker pole and decided… yeah, I’ll just build one. Using a carbon tube, CNC-machined end fittings, Dyneema, and some garage-level DIY skills, he put together a custom pole for about £1,000. The result is roughly 40% lighter than aluminum, which your foredeck crew will definitely appreciate. The job mostly involves careful cutting, fitting, gluing, and lacquering, plus a few safety precautions because carbon dust is nasty stuff. Big savings, lighter gear, and a pretty satisfying project if you like tinkering with boat gear.

Foiling

2026 iQFOiL International Games #2: Medal Series Line-Ups Decided in Cádiz (3 min read)
The iQFOiL fleet in Cádiz wrapped up a wild qualifying day, locking in the riders who’ll fight for the medals. In the men’s fleet, Noah Lyons went full beast mode and won every race of the day, jumping straight into the Grand Final alongside overall leader Mateus Isaac. The women’s side saw Spain’s Pilar Lamadrid keep her dominant streak alive, while several fleets had last-minute leaderboard shakeups as sailors scrambled for Medal Series spots. Six fleets, 16 races, and everything from sprint formats to classic course racing made it a chaotic but decisive day on the Bay of Cádiz.

Sailing Highlight of the Day

TLDR: Before “AI” was everyone’s favorite buzzword, Emirates Team New Zealand was already using it to tune their America’s Cup weapon. Working with McKinsey’s QuantumBlack, the team built a reinforcement-learning bot that could sail their boat inside a simulator and test foil designs about ten times faster than human crews. The wild part? The AI eventually started sailing better than the sailors, who then used it as a coach to refine maneuvers and learn how new foil setups behaved. Turns out sometimes the fastest path to sailing faster… is letting a robot show you how.