New Zealand’s hurried SailGP preparations quickly caught up with them as they endured a horror start to the opening regatta in Bermuda, with skipper Peter Burling describing it as “a baptism of fire”.
The New Zealand team, headed by Burling and Blair Tuke, and crewed by fellow America’s Cup winners, were at the wrong end of the three fleet races held amongst the eight teams on Saturday (NZT).
New Zealand finished sixth, eighth, and eighth and face a massive job in the final two fleet races to be sailed on Monday to get into the Bermuda title race featuring the top two teams.
Australia, skippered by Tom Slingsby, won all three races. The third race featured several lead changes between Slingsby and Britain’s Sir Ben Ainslie.
Australia lead with 30 points, followed by France with 23, Japan 23, the United States 20, Spain 19, Great Britain 17, Denmark 11 and New Zealand 11.
Australia are the defending champions in this series that now has more teams and more regattas.
New Zealand have entered into the global series, featuring foiling 50-foot catamarans, for the first time and left their run to Bermuda late, being the last team to arrive.
A Covid emergency affected the final preparations for their new boat and a dramatic decision to bring the opening races forward a day to get better weather conditions also hit them hard.
Saturday was meant to be a practice day for New Zealand.
Instead, they were thrust into action, entering racing with just one day of training on their new boat after Thursday’s practice had been wiped out by high winds.
“It was a real baptism of fire out there for us today,” Burling said.
“We struggled a bit with control for most of the day, but it’s the first time we’ve ever sailed our boat in that configuration and in that breeze, so it’s a massive learning opportunity for us.
“We felt like we did a lot of things really well but we couldn’t quite put together a full race. It was really fun being out there, but it’s now about trying to string together some consistency.”
Burling said they had to realistic with the start of this campaign that features the best sailors in the world.
“We’re the only team that hasn’t done an event before and most teams here have done the whole of season one, so we always knew we were on the steepest learning curve, and we knew we had to be realistic with our expectations.
“ think today proved how tricky these boats are to sail in those conditions. It seemed like everyone was struggling out there but we were perhaps struggling slightly more than most.”
Slingsby was thrilled with his day as his team made full use of good starts off the crowded line.
“It was amazing to get out on the race track. It was windy, it was pretty wild,” said Slingsby, who added that it was a perfect way to settle into the new season.
“We had some doubts heading into the season,” added Slingsby. “We hadn’t been performing amazing in training, so it’s good to sort of silence those thoughts and know that we’re still talented, we’ve got the skills to win, and we’ve just got to perform when we have to.”
A week earlier, the Australians capsized the American boat during practice while waiting for their boat to be commissioned.
Billy Besson helmed France to finishes of 2-4-4 and Nathan Outteridge steered Japan to finishes of 3-2-5. The reconfigured US team skippered by Spithill went 4-6-3.
