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The weekend of the Rolex SailGP Championship 2026 in Bermuda was a reminder of just how much an F50 crew depends on every key position on board. Particularly the wing trimmer, the flight metronome. Following Glenn Ashby's double tibia-fibula fracture on Saturday, the DS Automobiles SailGP Team France had to improvise urgently to maintain its sporting program.
The wing trimmer position becomes central to F50 performance
Glenn Ashby's injury immediately weakened the French organization. The Australian had replaced Leigh McMillan this season, and brought rare experience of the flying multihull. His accident on Saturday before the second race forced the team to review its entire operational chain.
In steadier winds on Saturday, the lack of automatisms weighed heavily. The French had to give up heats 2 and 3 before resuming the fourth race with Tom Needham, who joined from the Australian team.
On Sunday May 10, David Gilmour boarded the French F50. The young Australian, on loan from Artemis Racing, was nonetheless discovering an extremely particular environment: different procedures, internal communication to be assimilated quickly and specific French boat settings.
This dependence on highly specialized profiles is becoming a structural reality of SailGP. Unlike Olympic sailing or many offshore circuits, improvised replacements are rare at this level of performance.
Bermuda shows the importance of technical adaptation to weather conditions
The Bermudan waters offered two very different days. On Saturday, the strong winds imposed powerful configurations and sailing under great physical strain. On Sunday, the wind died down, reshuffling the deck.
Philippe Presti, team manager of the DS Automobiles SailGP Team France, sums up this ability to react:
"What the team showed today was pretty incredible. After Glenn's injury, it would have been easy to put our heads down, but there was a real collective will to get back up and not give up."
In the end, the French team finished ninth in the Bermuda Sail Grand Prix, but recovered one place in the provisional overall championship standings with 25 points.
Les Bleus' 2026 season becomes an exercise in permanent crisis management
DS Automobiles SailGP Team France is now provisionally fifth in the championship behind Australia, Emirates GBR, Spain and the USA. But this position masks a season already marked by several crew adjustments.
In Rio, Manon Audinet was replaced by Liv McKay. Leigh McMillan had also temporarily left the wing trimmer position before Glenn Ashby's arrival.
This instability inevitably complicates the development of on-board automatisms. In SailGP, precise maneuvering becomes increasingly important as the average level of the fleet rises.
Stéphane Kandler, CEO of K Challenge, recognizes this difficulty:
"We're still a young team in SailGP. The level of the championship goes up every year and these moments are also part of learning the very high level."
The immediate task now is to find a permanent replacement for Glenn Ashby. The French team is considering a number of solutions, from recruiting an experienced profile to integrating young talent from the Akademy K Challenge.
And the schedule leaves no room for respite. The circuit resumes on May 30 and 31, 2026 in New York, before Halifax in June and Portsmouth at the end of July. In such a tight championship, every weekend lost quickly costs several places in the overall standings.
