SailGP: Northstar Continues to Face Challenges
April 23, 2026
Canada’s NorthStar SailGP Team finished 10th overall after a challenging weekend of racing on Guanabara Bay at the Enel Rio Sail Grand Prix held April 11-12.
While NorthStar demonstrated some moments of strong boat speed the team were unable to string together the consistency required to climb the leaderboard. The competition continues to be tough; fine margins across the fleet meant that any errors proved costly over the course of the event.
Driver Giles Scott said: “We’ve put a lot of changes in place, but this ended up being a pretty frustrating weekend. We’ve got a bit of a deadlock in the run of results we’ve had lately and although we have implemented some positive changes, they have not come to fruition and shown on the scorecard yet. We just have to try to break that deadlock next time.”
The Rio event presented a shifty racecourse, conditions placing a premium on clean starts and decision-making. CEO and Team Principal Phil Kennard stated: “This wasn’t the result we were aiming for, but it’s part of the process of building a competitive team. We know we’ve got a road ahead of us, we will debrief and aim to come back stronger at the next event.”
The team now turns its focus to Bermuda, the next event on the SailGP calendar on 9-10 May, After that the next stop is a home game, the Canada Sail Prix on 20-21 June in Halifax.
