SailGP Christchurch: New Zealand team take lead after opening day

New Zealand lead after day one in Christchurch. Photo / SailGP via Photosport

The New Zealand SailGP team sent a statement on their home waters in Lyttelton on Saturday, but as far as helmsman Peter Burling is concerned, it wasn’t big enough.

In SailGP’s debut event on New Zealand waters, the Kiwi team finished the opening day at the top of the leaderboard with a win and two runner-up finishes from the day’s racing.

But while the results were flattering, Burling said the day didn’t go how his team would have ideally liked it to.

“It was great to get three solid results on the board, but definitely not our best statement,” Burling told the Herald.

“A few mistakes around the track and in a few ways, but just to be able to sail solid races, pass people, definitely puts us in a really good stead going into tomorrow and understand exactly what we’re trying to do.”

The first event back onboard their own F50 foiling catamaran Amokura after the vessel was struck by lightning in January, the New Zealanders were the last boat craned into the water on Saturday and they had to get technicians on board to sort an issue with the hydraulics immediately before racing.

A short delay to the opening race of the day caused by dolphins swimming within the race course bought them some time, and those issues didn’t seem to impact their performance too much – though Burling said had they not gotten out for a short practice session on Thursday that might have been a different story.

Instead, it was their performances in the starting box which caused some issues; getting it wrong in the opening race and picking up a boundary penalty during their starting manoeuvre in the third race.

Those poor starts didn’t impact the crew too much, as they were able to charge through the fleet to finish both of those races in second place.

In the middle race, they were perfect at the starting line and went on to claim an impressive win.

The event is poised for an interesting finish on Sunday with the Kiwis holding a slim lead at the top of the leaderboard. Kiwi driver Phil Robertson and his Canadian crew sit second on 24 points for the event – four back from New Zealand – while Great Britain sit third on 23, with France in fourth on 21.

It’s the positions of Great Britain and France that are of interest for the Kiwis, as they are looking to consolidate their position in second place on the overall leaderboard – just one point ahead of France and two ahead of Great Britain.

This weekend’s event is the penultimate regatta of the season, and the last to feature a podium race. Next month’s event in San Francisco will feature the same programme of five fleet races, with the podium race replaced with the US$1m three-team grand final shootout.

New Zealand strategist Liv Mackay said the position of France and Great Britain in the regatta would be a point to note going into the second day of racing, and would motivate them even more to replicate their results of Saturday.

“It’s definitely affecting going into the end of the season,” Mackay said. “But you’ve got to race the boat well, and if we’re winning races and that will speak for itself. But yeah, it’s definitely a conversation.

“We’re really happy as a team with how we executed today, but for sure, you kind of park that and take the learnings from it and then come out firing tomorrow.”

Sunday will feature two more fleet races, before the top three for the event race to decide the podium spots.