Burling earns first win of SailGP series
LONDON: Team New Zealand skipper Peter Burling earned his longawaited first SailGP win when victorious over Tom Slingsby in Plymouth yesterday.
Burling steered the Kiwis’ 50foot foiling catamaran to victory in the podium race of the Great Britain Sail Grand Prix, beating Australian Slingsby.
Victory ended Team Australia’s fiveregatta winning streak spanning two seasons. Denmark’s Nicolai Sehested finished third in his first SailGP podium race.
Slingsby has led Australia to consecutive season championships and the $US1 million ($NZ1.6 million) prize, and had won seven of the past eight regattas.
Before the second day of the regatta began, Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, steered the British catamaran to victory— with British sailing star Sir Ben Ainslie at her side — past the Kiwis in a friendly Commonwealth race.
But Burling won the race that really mattered and jumped into third place in the season standings of the nineboat fleet in tech tycoon Larry Ellison’s global league.
Team Australia remains first and Britain second.
Burling and Blair Tuke, two of the world’s most accomplished sailors, joined SailGP for the second season with high expectations but struggled and finished fifth in the season standings.
‘‘I think a lot of people would have expected this of us by now and it’s great to have put together a good weekend and put in such a dominant performance,’’ Burling said.
‘‘We have been working really hard to improve and I think we truly proved that today.’’
Burling and Tuke have led Team New Zealand to consecutive victories in the America’s Cup and won three Olympic medals, including one gold.
That is why it was a mystery why they struggled after joining SailGP, considering that the foiling 50foot catamarans are an updated version of what they sailed to beat defending champion Team USA in the 2017 America’s Cup.
The Kiwis had a sixpoint lead after going 221 in Sunday’s fleet races and then went 51 in the final two fleet races yesterday to reach the podium race.
After Burling won the start, all three boats fell off their foils in light wind. Sehested got his cat foiling again but Burling swooped into the lead at the third gate and sailed off for the win.
‘‘It’s been a big push to get to this point but I’m really pleased with the way we’ve been sailing and improving,’’ he said.
The Australians’ regatta nearly ended with a broken rudder in the fourth fleet race but it was quickly repaired.
‘‘We are not disappointed at all,’’ Slingsby, an Olympic gold medallist and former America’s Cup champion, said.
‘‘Actually, we are ecstatic about coming second in this event. It was just a really tough day for us.’’ — AP