SailGP’s Racing on the Edge follows Los Gallos and NorthStar as they build team culture in opposite ways, from a dinghy race in Halifax to a psychologist’s work tested in the Portsmouth Final.
The fifth episode of SailGP’s 2026 docuseries Racing on the Edge, produced in partnership with Rolex, puts two teams side by side and asks whether a winning culture is built by escaping pressure or by learning to thrive within it.
Titled “Empathy,” the episode follows Spain’s Los Gallos and Canada’s NorthStar through the mid-season Grands Prix in Halifax and Portsmouth, where the two teams faced very different problems.
Los Gallos came to the Canada Sail Grand Prix as one of the most consistent teams in the Rolex SailGP Championship, regularly reaching event Finals but still searching for a breakthrough victory. NorthStar were heading the other way, with results slipping, communication growing strained and pressure building on the Canadian team.
NorthStar chose to let that pressure out. On home waters in Halifax, the athletes left their F50 behind and raced tiny dinghies in a lighthearted “SlowGP” race alongside local young sailors, a chance to reconnect, laugh together and rediscover the enjoyment of competition. Beneath the fun, the episode shows a fiercely competitive group still searching for the formula that will turn its potential into results.
Los Gallos took a very different route. The Spanish team worked with psychologist Ben Parker, using personality profiling, open conversations and psychological preparation to understand how individual athletes respond to pressure and how they can help one another perform.
For strategist Nicole van der Velden, the process became deeply personal. In the episode she reflects on the responsibility she took on at a young age after her mother became seriously ill.
“Failing someone else feels harder than failing myself in that moment,” Van der Velden says.
Parker describes the work as creating an environment in which athletes can stay connected even when the pressure peaks.
“Great teamwork is about creating conditions for others to be and do their best,” Parker says. “You be the energy you want to see and your job is to make your crewmate shine.”
Both approaches met their biggest test at the Emirates Great Britain Sail Grand Prix in Portsmouth.
NorthStar’s communication issues resurfaced at first. Then, in a dramatic final fleet race, driver Giles Scott took control and inspired a charge through the field that earned the Canadians a place in the event Final.
Los Gallos qualified as well, and the Final became the ultimate examination of their psychological work. After a difficult start, the Spanish team fought back into contention before a critical mistake on board threatened to undo their race. Rather than letting blame or frustration take over, the crew stayed composed and recovered, racing from fourth to first to claim victory.
For Parker, it was proof that the team’s work away from the water held when it mattered most.
“A skill is not truly mastered until it no longer breaks down under pressure,” he says. “The Portsmouth final was pressure and they pushed through it.”
Racing on the Edge: Empathy offers an intimate look at the personalities, relationships and emotions behind SailGP’s high-performance teams.
Two events remain in the 2026 Rolex SailGP Championship, in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Full details are available at sailgp.com/dubai and sailgp.com/abudhabi
