ROCKWOOL Germany SailGP 2026. Tom Slingsby's BONDS Flying Roos (Australia) have won the ROCKWOOL Germany Sail Grand Prix, capping a weekend on the Baltic that produced an all-time SailGP speed record, a home win for the Germany by Deutsche Bank team, and late collapses from the two teams that led their groups going into Sunday's deciders.
Saturday: a new fastest boat in the world
Six fleet races across two groups opened the weekend on Saturday, and the story of the day was set in the very last race. DS Team France hit 107.63km/h rounding the first mark of Group A's third race, breaking the 103.93km/h record Rockwool Denmark had held since setting it at this same venue in 2025.
Coming out of the first day of racing, the Black Foils (NZ) topped Group A outright on 12 points, their best day since February's Auckland collision, coming from a first in Race 1, a second in Race 2, and a third in Race 3. DS Automobiles Frances and Los Gallos Spain won one each. At the end of Saturday France was second on 11 points. Explora Journeys Swiss and Los Gallos Spain both sat on 7 points, with Red Bull Italy and ROCKWOOL Denmark both on 4 points.
Group B told a different story. On Saturday, the BONDS Flying Roos won the first two races in dominant fashion, Emirates GBR clawing back from fourth in the first race to second in the second race while NorthStar Canada did the opposite. Then, in the final race, Germany won at home in front of their own crowd, and Australia's perfect day ended with a foul on Emirates GBR in the run to the line that dropped them to last. Australia led Group B overnight on 10 points, with Artemis Sweden second with 9 points, Northstar Canada 8 points and Emirates GBR on 7 points. None were guaranteed a place in the final, with the second day proving crucial.
Sunday: Germany go back-to-back, New Zealand punch their ticket
On Sunday, racing resumed in heavy rain and gusty, patchy conditions that would define the whole day. In Group B, Germany won their first race of the day, coming from last to first through a wind shift nobody else on the course found, while Australia sailed into a dead patch and were becalmed to fifth. That result locked Group B into a genuine four-way race at the top: Artemis Sweden and NorthStar Canada on 12 points, Germany and Australia on 11.
Group B's fifth and deciding fleet race settled the four-way race to the final. NorthStar Canada won the race, enough to leapfrog them into the final ahead of both Artemis Sweden and a German team that had just won back-to-back. The BONDS Flying Roos came in second, effectively locking out Artemis Sweden by one point. Canada finished the group stage on 17 points, Australia on 15, Sweden on 14 and Germany on 12.
In Group A, Black Foils led every mark of Race 4 to secure their place in Sunday's final with 17 points, a total nobody else in the group would catch. That left the second qualifying spot as a straight fight between DS Team France, who led Los Gallos Spain by 3 points.
Group A's decider was the bigger shock. France only to beat Los Gallos Spain. Instead, Los Gallos Spain won the final Group A fleet race, while France spent the entire race pinned behind Black Foils with no lane to pass, finishing second-to-last. The New Zealand Black Foils ended the group stage convincingly on 19 points, Los Gallos Spain through in second on 16 points, and DS Automobiles France missed the final by two points after setting the weekend's headline moment less than 24 hours earlier.
The final: BONDS Flying Roos beat the wind
Sunday's four-boat, winner-takes-all final came down to timing as much as boat speed. Tom Slingsby's BONDS Flying Roos timed the start well, led from the get-go and crossed the finish line just as the breeze died completely, leaving NorthStar Canada, Los Gallos Spain and Black Foils languishing just ahead of the finish line, all off their foils in a tight group, in a genuine drift, hunting for patches of pressure on the water. In the end, in slow motion, NorthStar Canada held second 'comfortably'. The Black Foils and Los Gallos Spain arrived at the line together, overlapped at a boundary crossing where the Black Foils were judged not to have given Los Gallos Spain enough room. The penalty dropped the Black Foils to fourth and promoted Los Gallos Spain to third, even though the Black Foils's raw crossing time was marginally the quicker of the two.
It capped an extraordinary weekend for the BONDS Flying Roos. They led Group B for most of Saturday, fouled their way to last in one race, were becalmed to fifth in another, and needed a strong final-race result just to scrape into the final. They then won the one race of the weekend that was worth the most: their first victory since New York earlier this season, $400,000 of the event's prize pool, and 10 championship points that take them to 76 for the season with four events left. More their win in ROCKWOOL Germany SailGP means they have now won five events in 2026. And not to be missed, Tom Slingsby has now won over 100 races in SailGP history.
Final Sassnitz points and event standings
Group A: Black Foils 19, Los Gallos Spain 16, DS Team France 14, Explora Journeys Swiss 9, Rockwool Racing 8 (Denmark), Red Bull Italy 7, Mubadala Brazil 0.
Group B: NorthStar Canada 17, BONDS Flying Roos 15, Artemis Sweden 14, Germany SailGP Team 12, Emirates GBR 9, US SailGP Team 8.
Event final: 1st BONDS Flying Roos, 2nd NorthStar Canada, 3rd Los Gallos Spain, 4th Black Foils.
DS Team France leave Sassnitz still holding the outright SailGP speed record, even without a podium finish to show for the weekend. SailGP's next stop is Valencia, Spain, on 5-6 September.
