Will the changes help US SailGP Team?

The ninth event of the 2025 SailGP Season takes place on September 12-13 – Friday and Saturday – and will remarkably see the full fleet of 12 teams take to the Côte d’Azur in Saint-Tropez, France. Considering how the previous event saw USA rip off their bow and Brazil crumble their front beam, the league is keeping the show on the road.

When the teams had to submit their crew lists for France, the US SailGP Team revealed a new sailing line-up which notably has Michael Menninger replacing Jeremy Wilmot on wing trim, and Andrew Campbell relieving Team CEO Mike Buckley as strategist. Marcus Lynch, who is the US Sailing Team’s High Performance Director, is also moonlighting as the team’s coach.

Along with helm Taylor Canfield, flight controller Hans Henken, and grinders Peter Kinney, Anna Weis, and Mac Agnese, this is the crew the team was not so upfront about at the previous event, and hopefully in the past month have figured out how not to t-bone another boat again. Is this the squad to get the USA out of the cellar? Their rebuilt port hull hopes so. Standing by…

Racing takes place 1:30-3:00pm CEST on Friday and 12:30-2:00pm CEST on Saturday.

SailGP information – Saint-Tropez event – YouTube

Season 5 Leaderboard (after 8 events)
1. Australia – Tom Slingsby, 61 points
2. New Zealand – Peter Burling, 61 points
3. Great Britain – Dylan Fletcher, 58 points
4. Spain – Diego Botin, 56 points
5. France – Quintin Delapierre, 47 points*
6. Canada – Giles Scott, 44 points
7. Switzerland – Sebastien Schneiter, 30 points
8. Denmark – Nicolai Sehested, 22 points**
9. Italy – Ruggero Tita, 20 points
10. Brazil – Martine Grael, 11 points**
11. Germany – Erik Heil, 6 points**
12. United States – Taylor Canfield, -8 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
* The season began with 14 events but Tranto was replaced with Saint-Tropez, while Rio and Middle East were cancelled.

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).
• The league still owns the New Zealand and Spain teams and are looking at how they can bring new investment into them.

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.