Peter Burling and Blair Tuke reveal their SailGP performance “wasn’t where we hoped it would be” as they drop out of two regattas to concentrate on their Olympic campaign. Video / NZ Herald
The New Zealand SailGP team have been on a steep learning curve in their debut campaign.
Only launching their F50 foiling catamaran, Amokura, the day before their opening event of the series in Bermuda in April, the team was thrown in the deep end.
However, with the experience of theirfifth-place finish in Bermuda, they were looking to continue building this weekend in Taranto, Italy – albeit it without co-chief executives Blair Tuke and Peter Burling.
Tuke and Burling will miss the next two events on the SailGP season due to their commitments to the Olympic Games, watching on from New Zealand. Swiss foiling specialist Arnaud Psarofaghis (helm) and Australian James Wierzbowski (flight controller) have been recruited as cover along with Kiwi Jason Saunders (wing trimmer).
"It's obviously something we'd love to be up there racing, but at the same time we've got to do everything we can to be as prepared as possible for the Olympics," Burling told the Herald.
The New Zealand team made its SailGP debut in Bermuda earlier in the year. Photo / Photosport
"It's definitely going to be a little bit strange watching our team from halfway around the world, but in that same regard, we feel like we've got some pretty amazing talent to be able to fill in for us. Those people don't get a whole heap of practice leading into these events, so it's going to be a challenging job for them to get up to speed and get the boat around the track in good shape."
While they weren't able to secure a podium finish in the opening round, there was plenty for the Kiwi outfit to take out of the event, finishing ahead of experienced campaigners in the USA and Japan, and fellow newcomers Denmark.
This weekend's event in Italy is the second of eight stops on the series, which finishes in the United States in March 2022.
Despite not being with the team on the ground this weekend, Tuke said they had been in touch with the group and would be doing what they could to help with data analysis from afar.
"I think as leaders of the team, although the performance probably wasn't where we were hoping it to be later in the season, there's a lot of proud moments for us," Tuke said of the opening event of the campaign.
"It was awesome to get the boat on the water to launch Amokura after a lot of hard work behind the scenes over the past eight months by the team to prepare that. To see the black boat, the blue fern with the Live Ocean (logo) on there was awesome.
"As a group we were thrown very much in the deep end, launching the boat only a day before racing, and all of us in the sailing team in pretty new roles for us. It was a steep learning curve; it's going to continue to be a steep learning curve for the team over these next couple of events, but it's a long season. We're going to keep pushing hard; we feel like we've still got a real chance of standing at the top of the podium and hold the trophy up at the end of the year."
