Sailing: New Zealand SailGP Team wingsail implosion leaves team at mercy of league

The New Zealand SailGP team are at the mercy of the league if they are to be back on the water for the next event, and have voiced their concern about how things unfolded for them in France last week.

The Kiwis were forced to withdraw from the second day of the event after their wingsail imploded following the final race of the event’s opening day. The damage could not be repaired overnight and no spares were on site, though SailGP hopes to freight a replacement to Taranto, Italy, for next weekend’s races.

The 29m wing collapsed while the boat was in motion and the sailors were onboard. No one was injured and the sailors did well to get it back to shore with no further damage.

While SailGP is sailed on a one-design fleet with league-supplied equipment, the rules do not have any leeway for teams hampered by such a situation. Kiwi helmsman and co-chief executive Peter Burling has expressed his disappointment and implored the league to reassess that.

“We had a huge structural failure on a one-design piece of equipment that was due to no fault of anyone within this group, so I think the league’s got to go back and have a really deep dive into what exactly happened, what exactly caused that.”

It was a sentiment echoed by wing trimmer and co-chief executive Blair Tuke.

“We, in SailGP, rely on the league to supply us the parts of the boat – the wingsail and the boat itself – and there’s not enough spare parts for us to get the wing back in the water in a safe way,” Tuke said.

“That’s really disappointing and something that’s going to need some work looking into how this doesn’t happen again.”

The New Zealand team had been sailing well in Saint-Tropez, but as they were only able to sail in three of the five fleet races, they finished eighth out of 10 teams. While that didn’t drop them from fifth place on the overall leaderboard, they did fall further behind the leading teams.

The Kiwis now sit nine points behind leaders Australia, and six points outside the top three. Although nine events remain in the season and plenty of time to catch up, the Kiwis have to chase.

No spare 29m wings were onsite in Saint-Tropez because of a “backlog of damage” to the component across the fleet, going back to when the Kiwi boat was struck by lightning in Singapore in January. That was followed by extreme weather that destroyed another wing in Sydney in February.

A spare wing was under construction and has just recently been completed, with league chief executive Sir Russell Coutts confirming they would be looking at ways to get it to Italy.

However, Coutts did not comment on whether the failure would lead to a review of how the teams are scored in such situations, instead reiterating the current rules.

“Our approach is that where possible, the results should be decided on the water during the race similar to how most other professional sports are organised.

“The only time our rules offer redress is if a boat loses its data. When this happens, that boat is required by the rules to immediately leave the course because they can’t see the boundaries, boundary zones or the other boats electronically and neither can our umpires. The collision warning systems would therefore not operate which could cause a potentially dangerous situation. In this case, the umpires would award the affected team a 5th place finish.”