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Sailing News for February 25, 2026

Sydney Harbour is next on the SailGP calendar with racing set for 5:30pm AEDT both days, which means late-night coffee for U.S. fans as Tom Slingsby hunts another home win and the U.S. crew looks to keep building momentum, while the official investigation into Auckland confirmed the NZL–FRA crash came down to a gust, foil ventilation and physics at 49 knots rather than system failure. Offshore, Jason Carroll’s MOD70 Argo scorched around the RORC Caribbean 600 in just over a day and a half with Final Final barely a mile behind after 600 miles of tradewind blast reaching, and in Mallorca the British Dragon fleet carried strong form onto the Copa del Mediterráneo podium. Youth sailing delivered its own wins with the Hardy Cup marking 25 years of launching match racing talent and Sea Scouts proving a week without phones still hooks the next generation, while cruisers get a timely reminder that proper rig tuning matters. And if you need pure horsepower to finish, Palm Beach XI’s new C-foils just helped the 100 footer touch 29 knots in a Sydney nor’easter, bow high and very much flying the big boat flag.

Sail GP/America’s Cup

What Time Is The Sydney Sail Grand Prix? (3 min read)
SailGP is back on Sydney Harbour February 28 to March 1, with racing firing up at 5:30pm AEDT both days. For U.S. fans, that means a proper late night, 10:30pm on the West Coast and 1:30am on the East Coast. Tom Slingsby’s Flying Roos will be hunting a home win, while Taylor Canfield’s U.S. crew hope you’ve got coffee ready. High speed foiling, tight boundaries and prime time Aussie sunshine. Set the alarm.

SailGP Investigation Confirmed Kiwi Error (4 min read)
SailGP’s deep dive into the Auckland crash is in, and it wasn’t a system glitch. Data shows Peter Burling’s Kiwi F50 was doing 49 knots when a gust launched the boat too high, the leeward foil ventilated, and things unraveled fast. A rapid side slip, loss of flow on the rudder and a sharp round up left France with nowhere to go. No hardware failure, just physics at the edge. New Zealand keeps the eight point penalty.

Inshore & Offshore Racing

RORC Caribbean 600 – Multihull Line Honours (2 min read)
Jason Carroll’s MOD70 Argo just ripped around the RORC Caribbean 600 in 1 day, 12 hours, 1 minute and 46 seconds to grab Multihull Line Honours. It was tight, with Jon Desmond’s MOD70 Final Final finishing barely a mile behind after 600 miles of Caribbean blast reaching. Brian Thompson and a stacked Argo crew kept the hammer down to seal it. Proper offshore drag race stuff in the tradewinds.

British Dragons on the Podium at Copa del Mediterráneo (4 min read)
Forty eight Dragons from 16 nations lit up Puerto Portals, with shifting Mallorcan breeze keeping everyone guessing. Sweden’s Miss Behaviour owned the week, but Britain’s GBR833 Louise Racing fired in a clutch 4-2-2 scoreline to grab second overall. Jerboa cracked the top 10, and the British squad heads toward the Gold Cup with real momentum. Classic keelboat matchups, big fleet tactics and proper Mediterranean chess.

Youth Sailing/Development

Sea Scouts: Finding Freedom Without Cell Phones (9 min read)
A crew of teenage Sea Scouts spent a week sailing the Florida Keys on a classic Morgan 41 and, shockingly, left their phones at home by choice. They stood watch, cooked every meal, dodged lobster pots, battled squalls and even fought a barracuda, all while learning real seamanship. There were groundings, mosquitoes and shredded impellers, but no drama. Just teamwork, sunsets and proof that sailing still hooks the next generation.

RSYS Celebrates 25th Anniversary Hardy Cup (4 min read)
The 25th Hardy Cup brought proper youth match racing heat to Sydney Harbour, with Elliott 7s dueling under the Opera House. New Zealand’s Ethan Fong and crew delivered a clinical finals performance to take the Silver Jubilee title, leading a Kiwi heavy podium. The Grade 3 regatta marked a quarter century of launching young sailors toward Youth Worlds, SailGP and beyond. Tight tactics, short courses and no room for mistakes. Exactly how match racing should look.

Cruising

The Legacy of the No-Name Scow (8 min read)
A 16 year old finds a beat up, fiberglass over plywood scow buried in a chicken coop and somehow finds his life’s calling. What starts as a summer cleanup project turns into racing, fiberglass repairs, hand carved rudders and a teenage boat flipping side hustle. There’s MacGyvered trailer hubs, championship dinghies rescued from neglect and plenty of hard won lessons. It’s a love letter to scrappy boats, sharp planes and the joy of figuring it out.

Tech & Gear

Rig Tuning for Cruising Sailors (9 min read)
Think rig tuning is just for racers? Think again. This deep dive shows how a properly set up rig can mean better pointing, less heel, lighter helm and even half a knot extra speed on passage. It covers the big stuff like safety and wire fatigue, plus simple wins like actually using your backstay to depower in a blow. If your leeward shrouds are flapping and you’ve never touched a bottlescrew, this is your nudge.

Sailing Highlight of the Day

The 100 foot supermaxi Palm Beach XI just proved her radical C-foil upgrade is no gimmick. In a 22 knot Sydney nor’easter she hit 29 knots, lifted the bow two metres and slashed wetted surface like a boat half her size. This isn’t full flight foiling, but it’s serious lift and serious speed for a maxi of this scale. Big boat, big engineering swing, and it’s clearly paying off.