A storm caused damage across the SailGP fleet in Sydney. Photo / SailGP
A storm caused damage across the SailGP fleet in Sydney. Photo / SailGP
Blair Tuke is confident SailGP’s debut event in New Zealand will go ahead as scheduled next month, however there is no guarantee that the full nine-boat fleet with make the starting line.
The dates for the event in Christchurch, scheduled for March 18 and 19, were thrown into some doubtover the weekend when an extreme weather event wreaked havoc on the tech site during the stop in Sydney causing day two to be cancelled.
After the opening day’s racing, the teams were back at their bases as they were putting the boats away for the night when a massive gust blew through the area. New Zealand’s vessel had just been loaded, and the Canadian and Australian boats were being attended to when the wind ripped through.
The Canadians wore the worst of it — with their brand-new boat sustaining significant damage — while wing sails across the fleet were also impacted. Canada’s wing was being lifted out at the time, and videos have shown the chaos as it was left to the mercy of the wind — being thrown around and torn apart.
While there were a lot of people on the site at the time, no one sustained serious injury.
“It was a super scary event, losing control of the wing like that. You’re just thankful everyone’s OK,” Tuke told the Herald. “Yeah, it was very, very scary.”
The league initially suggested the need to repair the damage could cause delays to the remainder of the year’s events, but Tuke said there was a lot of confidence that would not be the case.
The benefit of the next leg being scheduled for New Zealand is that the league’s main tech workshop is based in Warkworth so plenty of resources will be available.
“The tech team did a great job yesterday in the initial stages of assessing the damage. Now we’re heading back to Aotearoa, it’s really good for us because all the resources of SailGP Technologies can be called upon,” Tuke said. “The travelling tech team from SailGP Technologies can go there or some will go straight to Christchurch and do repairs.
“I’m really confident it will go ahead as planned on the dates, but there may be a slight change to the number of boats competing. That’s not going to be known for at least a few days or maybe even a week as all the damage is assessed.”
Much of the damage occurred as the 24m wing sails were being prepared for Sunday’s racing. The sails were in a tent which got hit by the gust and being lightweight, carbon fibre elements, they were blown over and damaged. Tuke said his team’s wing sustained a “reasonable amount of damage”.
SailGP chief executive Sir Russell Coutts said there were lessons to be learned from the incident, and the league would be reviewing how everything played out.
He also confirmed some of the damaged equipment would be sent straight the Christchurch, with a tech team being sent down for the necessary repairs, while the more substantial fixes would be shipped to SailGP Technologies headquarters in Warkworth where New Zealand’s boat Amokura is currently being repaired following a lightning strike in Singapore last month. The New Zealand leg of the series is the penultimate stop, with the conclusion in San Francisco in May.
Three races were completed on Saturday in Sydney before the weather event saw Sunday’s action cancelled. Those three races were enough to constitute a completed event, leaving the Kiwis to settle for sixth place and give up ground to the chasing pack in the overall standings in which they remain in second.
With the next stop being in New Zealand, Tuke said that provided even more motivation and desire to perform in front of the home crowd next month.
“It’s closed right up, so we’re motivated than ever to get back home now. It’s been a long time coming to get back to racing in Aotearoa, so we’re super excited and it’s going to be a big two last events to finish off the season.”
