Andrew: Sunday’s Racing Proved Our Processes Work

Strategist Andrew Campbell writes to you following the Canada Sail Grand Prix

Published 06/26/2026

The Canada Sail Grand Prix was another weekend of two halves for us and I feel like we're in an inconsistent groove at the moment, where we've been struggling to put two days together.

As we came off the water on Saturday, it really came down to just a couple of small decisions – maybe even just one small decision. It was a 50:50 call about how to deal with getting around one mark. We really needed to break it down and understand whether we would do it differently again.

No regrets

We were leading into that top mark on Saturday, in front of the Brits, but the Swiss were kind of foiling around the racetrack behind us. We just couldn't manage to get up and going on the foils on the short part of the racetrack against the city, and the Swiss ended up foiling past us. I think we went from 1st to about 5th in that race. It was just painstaking to go through it all again, because I don't think that we would have done it differently had we had the chance.

Maybe it's easy to say, ‘We're leading into this mark, everybody's following us, so let's tack away and go to the other side’. It wasn't obvious. So we came away from it saying, ‘We don't think we had a bad process, so let's stick to our plan and approach Sunday in a similar way’, because we had good starts on Saturday.

We approached Sunday the same way, with a few adjustments to how we were communicating, and it just kind of fell into place in a better way. I think that proved our processes were right, but it's still painful to come that close to the podium and not quite get there.

Changing conditions

The conditions were incredibly changeable across the weekend – particularly on Saturday. Between races we were watching the other group as intently as we watched our own and the racing was completely different.

We couldn't take any lessons out of Group A when we were trying to review Group B's racing. There were just completely different conditions. History can be quite dangerous in scenarios like that when the conditions are changing, over the city, in an inconsistent venue.

We just need to come to every race with a completely fresh set of eyes and just be reliant on our ability to assess the situation as it comes to us, rather than worrying about how the last race went or what we did in the previous one, because it'll be different each time.

Getting caught in the pattern of, ‘Well, this is how it was last time, so we should do the same thing’ – that was not a winning move this weekend. You had to be ready to jump when the opportunity came.

Role reversal

The new tether rule changes things for our team, because Anna's primary role is to trim the jib forward on that grinding pedestal, and she is excellent at that.

For her to step back and be in a more vocal position - more eyes out, driving out of maneuvers - she did such a fantastic job stepping up. We have some things to iron out as we go forward with this new rule but she's an Olympian and a very accomplished sailor.

Anna knows the cadence of our team. She knows when to speak and when the boat handling is going to be too crowded to speak. Anna and I spoke at length beforehand, and even on race day and we didn't miss a beat.

With the ability to communicate from the chase boat, I could prompt her - or prompt Taylor - and she could follow up with the critical piece of information, because she's as good as anybody to go and get that.

We've driven into some of these shorthanded situations to have strengths where Anna was on the handles through the entire wind range, and that really put us at an advantage when it got light. Some of the other teams had to move their strategists into a grinding role, and she was dominant in those moments.

Trying to figure out how to turn this rule scenario into a strength for us is the way we’re looking at the challenge, but it's not something we're not ready for, because Anna is as capable as anybody and a fantastic member of our squad.

Anniversary reflections

It’s rapidly approaching a year since I rejoined the squad in Portsmouth last summer and it's been such a fantastic opportunity for me.

SailGP is the kind of thing that's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and for me it's been twice! I feel as lucky as ever to be able to contribute on and off the water to a squad like this.

They're such a great group of competitors, and the league is something that I feel really strongly is doing some good for our sport. I'm really thankful for the opportunity, but also aware of the responsibility that we have as athletes to go out and work as hard as we possibly can to get some good results, because we've got such a great fan base that is building behind us and deserves to have a winning squad. That's where we're going.

We’ll look forward to seeing some of you in Portsmouth. It was a brilliant crowd last year and we’re looking forward to kicking off the European leg of the season.

Speak soon,

Andrew

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