PK: Success this season has been driven by accountability
U.S. SailGP Team grinder Peter Kinney reviews the 2026 SailGP Season and looks forward to Dubai and Abu Dhabi
Published 10/16/2026
It only seems like yesterday that we were in Perth to start the 2026 season, now we’ve only got two events to go and everything to play for.
There’s no off-season, as such, in SailGP but this is the closest thing we had with an almost two-month break from Geneva to Dubai. So it’s a natural point to reflect on the year and the lessons we’ve learned.
If I had to chalk up the difference between this season and last to one main thing, it’s that you can't just sit around and wait for things to happen. I can't wait for the coaches to do something. I can't wait for my teammates to do something. We need to talk about it, communicate about it, and ask questions.
Maybe that just happens more naturally over time as you become more comfortable working with people, sailing with people, and being around people. Or maybe we took a look in the mirror and said, "Hey, I need something from this person. I'm going to go and talk to them." It's pretty basic, but in every single aspect of life – relationships, family, work – these are things you have to do to get things done, get information, or work together.
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We've taken personal accountability for ourselves and then held our teammates accountable to act a certain way, to execute, and to perform. That's created an environment where we're able to be like teams that have already set those standards within their groups for years.
The Australians have been sailing together for almost 15 years. That's crazy. We've done it for coming up on three, and it's still not even the entire team. So we have a long way to go, but it's nice to get those wins and see the performance coming through.
Keeping the hunger
The European leg was an amazing stretch – three events within five weeks. We didn't have the best event in Sassnitz. We came to Valencia and turned around in conditions that we think we're going to see for the rest of the season, and had a really good event. Then we go to Geneva, starting to get ready, feeling pretty darn good about ourselves and the rest of the season, and then it completely hit the fan – which happens.
So we had to pivot, which was interesting. I don't want to say that it was just what we needed, but I think it was a big dose of reality. It keeps us hungry, keeps us on edge - whatever you want to call it - going into these last two events, where we're not ahead by three, four, five, six points. We're going to have to put a lot of work in to be ready when we show up.
So we're meeting multiple times a week. We're studying all of our film from Valencia and Geneva, and we have a meeting today, in fact, where we're going to come up with some plans about how we can prepare for Dubai. We've been there twice over the last few seasons, and luckily we've had pretty good success there. Same with Abu Dhabi – it's a different racecourse, but again, we've had four events, and we've come away with two thirds and a fourth.
Something to fight for
We feel confident in our boat handling and ability to race in those conditions. Hopefully, we’ll have Taylor back close to full strength. I spoke with him yesterday, and he’s making good progress with his physical therapy and working toward getting back on the boat.
It's not going to be easy, but we have a fresh perspective, and we have something that we need to fight for and work for – not just to have two good events to finish the season and be happy with our results, but to make it into the Grand Final and finish ahead of the Brits and the Swedes. That's our goal.
If you had asked us that last year, people would have laughed, but the nice thing about goals is you can always change them, especially when you're raising the bar. Halfway through the season, three quarters through the season, that started to become a realization, and now it's very realistic, and we need to do everything we can to make it happen.
Competition throughout the fleet
I was going to look back at some film from Dubai and Abu Dhabi the last time, just to have a look and see what I thought about it. The way the boats are sailed, the equipment, the personnel on the boat – there are all these changes. But at the same time, that's the cool part about SailGP.
The people are so good, and the boats are changing all the time. It's never going to stay the same. The execution level of every single team gets higher and higher, not just every event, but every single day they go sailing. So you're never surprised when a certain team wins a race.
Read more: The biggest data takeaways from the 2026 Season
Even the teams at the bottom have multiple America's Cups, multiple gold medals, SailGP wins. The level has gotten really high, and it's going to keep getting higher. I once had a football coach who said, "You're either getting better or you're getting worse. There's no in-between. There's no staying the same."
We need to have that mentality going forward – not just until the last two events of the season, but every single day that we're prepping and training, for this season, next season, and the seasons to come.
Catch you on the water,
PK
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