2026 Grand Final contenders: How ‘the wheels came off’ Emirates GBR

The team finished 12th overall, taking just seven Championship points, with a 11 (DNF), 6, 11, 12, 11, 10 and 10 racing record. The only team to finish worse was the Black Foils, who didn't start.

The result was the British team tumbling from three consecutive podium performances to the bottom of the fleet; zero top-five finishes across seven races, an average delay of 8.2 seconds to the start line and grand total of zero points scored in four of the seven races. In the three events before Rio? Six race wins out of 11 and an average race finish position of 2.4.

The reason for this total collapse of form is a mystery - as commentator Lisa Darmanin says 'nothing significant has happened'. "They were leading this season, but it's just not the team we're used to seeing," she says, "whatever they're doing, it's not working."

While we don't know why the team performed so badly in Rio, we do know how - across four major areas - starting, foiling consistency, boat speed and distance lost through maneuvers.

The numbers tell the story. In wind speeds fluctuating 13.5-16.8 km/h on day one, the fleet maintained a 55-68% foiling time. But Emirates GBR spent the majority of the day in displacement mode, with an average flight time of 34%. They also had a lower average ride height - 312.8mm compared to the fleet average of 600mm.

Conditions improved on day two, with winds increasing to a maximum of 23 km/h. This resulted in an improved 75.2% flight time for the British, but straight line speed remained slow. In fact EGBR had the lowest average speed of all boats - 29.26 km/h.

Unfortunately for the team, Rio was a sign of things to come. Their post-Rio campaign has seen a sharp drop in win frequency. Before Rio, they won more than half (54.5%) of all races sailed and finished on the podium in 73% of races. But after Rio, this has dropped to 5.9% and 26.5% respectively.

New York was the exception - the team qualified for the Final alongside the Bonds Flying Roos and NorthStar and finished second overall. But they immediately followed this event with consecutive 11th place finishes in Halifax and their home event Portsmouth.

In the last five events of the season (Halifax, Portsmouth, Sassnitz, Valencia and Geneva), Emirates GBR has pocketed just nine points out of a possible 50. "That's mental for Emirates GBR," Morrison says.

Once the fleet frontrunner, the team has now slipped to fifth overall on the season leaderboard and fallen outside the top three qualifying for the Grand Final.

Just two events remain (Dubai and Abu Dhabi) and despite such a fall from form, it's still mathematically possible for Fletcher's squad to make the three-boat shootout.
Despite this, Damanin says the team should be 'comfortably in the top three'. "This time last season, they'd locked their spot in."

But Morrison isn't counting them out yet. "My caveat to this is they're still six points off that top three - no one's knocked them out yet," he says.

Emirates GBR has just two events left to pick up points and qualify for the Grand Final, but is likely to face stiff competition from fellow Grand Final contenders Artemis (3rd) and the U.S (4th) when racing resumes in Dubai (21-22 November) and Abu Dhabi (28-28 November). Get tickets to Dubai and Abu Dhabi or find out how to watch from wherever you are.

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