SailGP: Danish damage too extensive

It is never good to hit marks, and especially not good for the SailGP teams this season. With the change to T-foil daggerboards that extend outboard of the hull, the Danish passed too closely to a mark during the Los Angeles event, and the significant foil damage kept them from racing.

The team got more bad news that the damage sustained in Los Angeles was deemed too extensive to repair in time for the San Francisco event on March 22-23. The collision damaged the F50’s foil and casing, and caused significant structural damage to the port hull.

“It’s a challenging situation, but it’s not because people haven’t tried,” noted skipper Nicolai Sehested. “SailGP’s Tech Team and our Shore Team have been working super hard to make it happen under the timelines, but a lot of it comes down to a crucial part that’s not yet available on site – the board case.”

SailGP does not have spare board cases at the moment – there are currently two spares in production at SailGP Technologies, but they take around 12 weeks to complete, and they are approximately half way built.

“As it’s a highly-loaded part of the F50, it’s important that the repair is done properly, so it’s an impossible mission for the Tech Team to get the damage repaired in three days between two busy events.”

The Danish team was docked eight points from its 2025 Season score for the incident in Los Angeles, plus 12 event penalty points – resulting in a last place finish. Now the team will miss a second consecutive event in San Francisco.

“Our season is massively at risk of being done, before we’ve even gotten to the European leg, so it’s a tough one to swallow for the team. We’ve just got to stand together as a group, try to figure out how we get on from here, and come back stronger.”

The ROCKWOOL Racing SailGP Team currently sits 9th on the overall 2025 Season leaderboard, with nine season points. An umpire review as to whether Denmark will be awarded compensatory points for the Oracle San Francisco Sail Grand Prix is currently underway.

SailGP information – San Francisco details – Crew list – YouTube – Facebook

Season 5 Leaderboard (after 4 of 14 events)
1. Great Britain, 34 points
2. Australia, 32 points
3. New Zealand, 29 points
4. Spain, 26 points
5. Canada, 25 points
6. France, 20 points*
7. Switzerland, 13 points
8. Italy, 10 points
9. Denmark, 9 points**
10. United States, 2 points**
11. Brazil, 0 point**
12. Germany, -2 points**
* France was awarded points for the first two events as their F50 was not available
**Teams receive season penalty points for incidents during practice or racing

Season 5 Schedule – 14 events
2024
November 23-24 – Dubai, UAE

2025
January 18-19 – Auckland, New Zealand
February 8-9 – Sydney, Australia
March 15-16 – Los Angeles, USA
March 22-23 – San Francisco, USA
May 3-4 – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
June 7-8 – New York City, USA
July 19-20 – Portsmouth, Great Britain
August 16-17 – Sassnitz, Germany
September 6-7 – Taranto, Italy
September 12-13 – Saint-Tropez, France
September 20-21 – Geneva, Switzerland
October 4-5 – Andalucía – Cádiz, Spain
November 7-8 – Middle East *
November 29-30 – Grand Final – Abu Dhabi, UAE
* Venue to be announced

Format for Season 5:
• Teams compete in identical F50 catamarans.
• Each event runs across two days.
• Five qualifying fleet races of approximately 15 minutes may be scheduled for each regatta.
• The top three teams from qualifying advance to a final race to be crowned event champion and earn the largest share of the prize purse (amount not confirmed; Season 4 had $400,000.00 USD prize purse with winning team earning $200k at each event).
• The season ends with the Grand Final, which includes the Championship Final Race for the top three teams in the season standing with the winner claiming a monetary award (amount not confirmed; Season 4 had $2 million USD prize).
• The top team on points ahead of the three-boat Championship Final will get a monetary award (amount not confirmed; Season 4 had a $350,000.00 prize).
• Ten of the 12 teams are privately owned, with the league having ownership of New Zealand and Spain.

For competition documents, click here.

Established in 2018, SailGP seeks to be an annual, global sports league featuring fan-centric inshore racing among national teams in some of the iconic harbors around the globe.