The Rolex SailGP Championship returns to the Baltic this weekend, with stronger winds potentially putting the championship’s outright speed record under threat at the ROCKWOOL Germany Sail Grand Prix in Sassnitz. Thirteen international teams will race close to the shoreline on Saturday and Sunday, August 22-23, in front of a sold-out weekend crowd of 13,000.
Sassnitz already holds SailGP’s speed record after Denmark’s ROCKWOOL Racing reached 103.93km/h at the German venue in 2025. With stronger winds forecast for this year’s event, ROCKWOOL Racing driver Nikolai Sehested believes the F50s could go faster.
“It needs to be a good window. All things have to line up to get it,” Sehested said. “There was way more in the tank. It’s still in these boats, and it’s just a matter of time before we break 105 kilometres an hour.”
The Danish crew was reminded of the risks when they nearly capsized during training earlier this week.
“That’s definitely the wrong way to get the speed record,” Sehested said. “When you’re doing 90km/h, a crash with the water hurts almost as much as a crash with something solid.”
Germany Targets Home Breakthrough
Germany enters its home event eighth in the championship but with 13 top-three fleet-race finishes this season, already its strongest campaign in SailGP.
An overall event victory has so far proved elusive, however, and driver Erik Kosegarten-Heil said achieving that breakthrough in Sassnitz “would mean the world to us”.
“Last year, we had a very bad season until we came here. Feeling the crowd and getting their energy was a big turning point for us for the rest of the season,” Heil said. “We’ve made a lot of progress, especially on speed. We’re now able to overtake people on the course, but it still feels like we’re not getting off the line quickly enough, so the big challenge again is to nail the starts.”
Germany faces a demanding Group B containing championship leaders the BONDS Flying Roos, Artemis Racing, Emirates GBR, NorthStar Canada and the United States.
Spain Chases Championship Leaders
Spain’s Los Gallos arrives in Germany with considerable momentum after back-to-back victories in Halifax and Portsmouth. The Spanish team is now 12 points behind the BONDS Flying Roos at the top of the championship.
Full flight — Los Gallos crew work at speed aboard the Spanish F50 as the team seeks to continue its winning run after victories in Halifax and Portsmouth. Photo: Ricardo Pinto
Los Gallos wing trimmer Florian Trittel said the team knows its strong run can change quickly.
“Right now, the pressure is on us,” Trittel said. “The last time we performed really well, with two wins, was last season, and after that, which would be now Sassnitz, we had a bad event. So no gap is big enough.”
Sweden’s Artemis Racing is also pushing for a first event victory after finishing second at its last two events.
“This year has been a really good year for us,” driver Nathan Outteridge said. “We started as a brand-new team and, at the start of the season, we were getting some good results but never really converting them into podiums. “Now we’re starting to find a little bit of form, but we’re not getting ahead of ourselves.”
Front runners — Spain’s Los Gallos and Sweden’s Artemis Racing foil past the packed SailGP grandstand, with both teams carrying strong form into the Germany Sail Grand Prix. Photo: Ricardo Pinto
Racing at the ROCKWOOL Germany Sail Grand Prix begins at 2 pm local time on Saturday, August 22, with the two-day event sold out.
