SailGP has identified a defect in wingsails across its F50 fleet, leading to the race organisation cancelling May’s Rio event.
The cancellation will facilitate required repairs ahead of the New York event scheduled for June 7-8 2025 and the remainder of the 2025 season.
The issue was discovered following testing and analysis of the Australia SailGP Team’s wingsail collapse in March in San Francisco.
SailGP CEO Russell Coutts called the decision ‘a necessary action to take’.
“After thorough review, our engineers and technicians have discovered an issue with the bonding of the core material in the shear web of some of the wingsails, which could potentially compromise the structural integrity of those wingsails,” he said.
“As such, we’ve made the prudent choice to suspend next month’s event, giving us sufficient time to complete repairs and conduct any further investigations.”
It’s a big job ahead, but we’re confident we can get all 12 national teams ready to race when SailGP returns to New York in June.
Russell Coutts
Organisers say they are considering potential options to reschedule the Rio event.
“While we know this news will be hugely disappointing, the safety of our athletes is our key priority,” added Russell.
“It’s a big job ahead, but we’re confident we can get all 12 national teams ready to race when SailGP returns to New York in June.”
Australia’s wing collapsed as the team approached the start line of the last fleet race.
The team was coming in fast to the line and trying to find a gap through when suddenly the entire F50 wing disintegrated and fell around the crew.
At the time, SailGP announced an investigation would be held to discover the cause of the wing collapse.
SailGP introduced new high-speed T-Foils to its fleet of F50s in January 2025. The T-Foils replaced the previous L-Foils that had been used since SailGP’s inception in 2019.
The new foils were designed to improve performance, control and safety of the F50s at high speeds.
