New dad Burling back on deck for SailGP
Peter Burling is back from baby duties to drive New Zealand’s SailGP team around Lyttleton Harbour.
Christchurch is this weekend’s venue for New Zealand’s leg of the SailGP season when the Kiwi crew, with their new Black Foils nickname, races with Burling at the helm again after he missed last month’s Sydney regatta.
The New Zealand team’s co-chief executive was absent because he and his wife Lucinda welcomed their first child into the world.
“It’s been an awesome time. Lucy and the little one have been going amazing. It’s been a cool part of life, but now we’re here in Lyttleton ready to race,” Burling said at yesterday’s top table with the other nine skippers by Lyttleton Harbour.
Some were wearing an additional jersey indoors on a chilly Canterbury autumn morning. Burling was not.
He was replaced by Nathan Outteridge, his Team New Zealand and America’s Cup team-mate, in Sydney when Australia beat Denmark and the Kiwis in the match race to extend their lead in the elite sailing series.
There was a hint of tension at yesterday’s press conference with all 10 drivers. New Zealand’s crew haven’t been permitted a training day around the harbour this week when others have, although this is not uncommon in SailGP
Burling shrugged it off.
“It feels like this season the New Zealand team haven’t had many days sailing compared to a lot of the other teams.”
Less experienced teams are often given more time to prepare on the water as the series attempts to balance its competitiveness. New Zealand are among the stronger boats in SailGP’s fourth season.
Outteridge will switch back to Switzerland as their driver in Christchurch. After skipping Sydney, Burling said he was targeting a hat-trick of wins after New Zealand’s victories in the previous two regattas in the Middle East lifted them into the all-important top three.
Burling returns in the same F50 foiling catamaran but with the team’s new name, the Black Foils, the latest identity adopted by a sports outfit representing New Zealand.
There are three more regattas after Christchurch, in Bermuda, Halifax and New York, before the San Francisco finale in July when the three leading boats in the standings will be racing to win the whole championship.
New Zealand sit second behind Australia but are closely followed by Denmark, Spain, France, Great Britain and the United States.
Tom Slingsby skippers Australia, the three-time SailGP winners, who remain the boat to beat after securing their first victory of the season in Sydney. As the celebrations began, they were already thinking of Christchurch.
“As an Aussie sportsman, it doesn’t matter what sport it is, you want to come to New Zealand to try to beat the Kiwis on their home turf,’’ Slingsby said yesterday. “It’s one of those bucket-list items.”