Melanie Roberts: Right place, Right time

by Andy Rice, The Athletic
In the spring of 1995, a nine-year-old girl named Melanie Roberts sat glued to a television screen in San Diego, watching the America’s Cup unfold in her own Californian backyard.

It was a historic summer, the year of the first all-women’s crew, Mighty Mary, and Roberts had become an obsessive super-fan, dropping handwritten notes and sweet treats off at their team base.

When Russell Coutts steered the New Zealand boat to victory that year, and took the America’s Cup to Auckland for the first time in the event’s long history, little did Roberts imagine that, many years later, she would find herself running races for the very same Coutts in SailGP, the global league which New Zealand’s five-time America’s Cup winner founded with Oracle software billionaire Larry Ellison.

When Coutts and Ellison won the Cup together and brought it to San Francisco in 2013, Roberts found herself in the right place at the right time. – Full report

SailGP information – New York details – How to watch

Season 6 Results (after 5 of 13 events)
1. Australia, Tom Slingsby (AUS), 2-1-5-1-1, 45 points
2. Great Britain, Dylan Fletcher (GBR), 1-2-2-12-4, 35
3. Spain, Diego Botin (ESP), 12-3-3-2-2, 34
4. United States, Taylor Canfield (USA), 5-7-1-4-7, 31
5. France, Quentin Delapierre (FRA), 3-4*-13-8-9, 25
6. Germany, Erik Heil (GER), 9-6-8-6-3, 23
7. Sweden, Nathan Outteridge (AUS), 4-5-9-3-11, 23
8. Italy, Phil Robertson (NZL), 7-13-4-7-8, 18
9. Denmark, Nicolai Sehested (DEN), 8-9-6-5, 18
10. Canada, Giles Scott (CAN/GBR), 6-10-11-10-6, 12
11. Switzerland, Sébastien Schneiter (SUI), 11-12-10-11-5, 7
12. Brazil, Martine Grael (BRA), 10-11-7-9-12, 7
13. New Zealand, Peter Burling (NZL), 13-8-12-13-13, 2
* Received compensation points for Sydney due to boat damage in Event 2.

Season 6 – 2026 Schedule:
• Jan 17-18 – Perth, Australia
• Feb 14-15 – Auckland, New Zealand
• Feb 28-March 1 – Sydney, Australia
• Apr 11-12  – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• May 9-10 – Hamilton, Bermuda
• May 30-31 – New York, USA
• June 20-21 – Halifax, Canada
• July 25-26- Portsmouth, GBR
• August 22-23 – Sassnitz, Germany
• Sept 5-6 – Valencia, Spain
• Sept 19-20 – Geneva, Switzerland
• Nov 21-22 – Dubai, UAE
• Nov 28-29 – Abu Dhabi, UAE
Note: The 11th event was moved to Geneva from Saint-Tropez, France.

Season 6 format:
• Thirteen teams compete in identical F50 catamarans.
• Each event is two days.
• All teams compete in up to seven qualifying fleet races of approximately 15 minutes.
• The top three teams from qualifying advance to a final race for the event title.
• The season ends with the Grand Final event which includes the Championship Final Race for the top three teams in the season standing.
• All teams are privately owned except for New Zealand which is owned by the league.

Season 6 prize money:
A total of USD $12.8 million is up for grabs in 2026. The winner of each of the 13 events takes home $400,000, with $260,000 for second and $140,000 for third. The team with the most points at the end of the season wins $400,000, while the team that wins the Championship Final Race wins USD $2 million.

F50 Configuration:
All teams use same configuration based on weather forecast. There are four wingsail sizes (18m, 24m, 27.5m, and 29m), six jib sizes, two T-foil daggerboards (high-speed and low-speed), and one set of rudders with high-speed and low-speed settings.

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.