Andrew: We left points out there in Portsmouth – it’s time to get back on the podium

U.S. SailGP Team strategist Andrew Campbell writes after Portsmouth

Published 07/31/2026

Walking away from the weekend’s Great Britain Sail Grand Prix in Portsmouth, we're aware we left points on the water.

I'm not totally convinced that's because of our boat speed or our boat handling either. It's a matter of picking good lanes, making better decisions, and slowing the race down a little bit so that it works in our favor rather than getting dictated to by other teams.

So we're in a racing debrief this weekend rather than a boat-handling one. But it's pretty nice, after a year being back involved with this program, to be shifting from "OK, how can we finish every race of the weekend?" into a mode where it’s, “Hey, we're out here to get some points.”

Now we're in this place where we're nitpicking about trying to race the boat better - strategically, tactically - and put ourselves in spots where we can win and be on the podium. We're developing and learning about each other as teammates to enable the next step forward beyond that.

Solent delivers top-end conditions

We knew what to expect from the conditions on the Solent beforehand and it certainly delivered across the three days on the water. It was a welcome change to be six up with the 18-meter wing on for a whole weekend!

It's one of our strengths that we can put people in different positions on board and still execute well. But when all the teams are in the positions where they've hired everybody to be, you're racing against the absolute best-case scenario for every team, and that's somewhere we have isolated as a team that we need to build the most: up-range conditions.

So to continue to make progress in those conditions is really positive for us. I think that's how we're looking at it – we're always trying to make small gains and learn about how to sail in the breeze. The fact that we were competitive right out of the box on Saturday and won that first race gave us some confidence going forward that we could keep doing it.

Group therapy is good!

There was a lot of talk about the merits of group racing and the supposed ‘Group of Death’. Truly, though, it doesn't matter to us who's on the racetrack.

You know that some teams are going to start well and some teams are going to start poorly. If you predicted how everybody was going to go before the weekend, I guarantee you that a lot of people would have put the Brits quite high on the list and they finished P11. In the same breath, I don't know who would have put the Swiss on the podium for the Final – and they came through.

So I think the A and B group thing is a really fun topic for the press and the fans to get excited about. When we go out there and line up on the start line, it doesn't matter who's on our start line – we still have to go and beat those other boats, no matter who they are. And on any given day, any team can win a race on SailGP.

Overall, it made for really exciting racing and I was impressed by how the format - the shorter races, the shorter format of having only six boats there - put such an emphasis on clawing back.

One place is worth twice as much as it was previously when you are racing with the whole fleet because you have fewer races to get those points. You saw how quickly you can swing one way or the other because there are so few races to put an impact on the scoreboard.

Portsmouth delivers – as always

I want to finish with a word for the crowd lining the shore in Southsea. As always, it was really impressive to see the number of people turn out for this event in Portsmouth every year.

You can see why the south coast of England is the beating heart of this community – the people in the grandstand, the cars and boats up and down the commute as we were going up and down. People were lining our commute to see us go by.

READ: LOS GALLOS WINS BACK-TO-BACK AS U.S. SAILGP TEAM TAKES P6

The number of RIBs and little day sailors we saw was incredible; there are just a lot of fans of our sport, and it's really cool to be able to come back and showcase what we do to fans who appreciate what's going on. I always think it's pretty impressive when I come back here.

I’m staying in Europe with my family through Sassnitz now and we’ll be working hard to ensure we close those small margins in Germany.

Speak soon,

Andrew

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