The Spanish SailGP team triumphed once again in San Francisco, defeating NorthStar Canada and France SailGP Team, respectively, to become the fifth winner in five events this season. Despite a catastrophic wing collapse onboard Australia’s F50 at the start of race seven of the Oracle Sail Grand Prix in San Francisco, the Australians moves into first overall in the season standings.
In the three-boat final race that closed out a race-packed weekend, the French F50 helmed by Quentin Delapierre, hit the line flying, surging ahead to win the sprint to mark one. But after splitting the course at the second gate towards favorable current and wind, the Spanish raced away with the lead and the win.
Celebrating her first win of the season, Los Gallos strategist Nicole van der Velden said, “It feels amazing to win. It was super tight racing and we were really happy with our weekend, to come out on top and get into the final.”
Van der Velden continued, “We were feeling quite confident with how we were sailing and how we were starting, so super happy to finish it off well in the final. It’s great to get two-for-two in San Francisco. Now, a little bit of celebration and back to focus for the next event.”
Absent from the podium race was the Australia SailGP Team, which finished third on points after race seven, but was unable to compete after the stunning wing collapse, which resulted in a destroyed wing sail but no injuries reported for the sailing team.
“It’s heartbreaking,” helmsman Tom Slingsby said, “Obviously the results and the points are what they are, but we’re not even concerned about that. Just save the boat the best we can, everyone is safe and we’ve got a lot of work to do here.”
With salvage underway, SailGP teams will now begin an in-depth analysis to determine what caused the incident. “We’ve got to go look at the camera angles,” Slingsby said. “It was obviously close to the other boats, we need to determine if it was a wing failure, or was there something else at play? Did we make an error, or did the boat fail?”
In the opening fleet race of the second day of the regatta (race five), France’s Quentin Delapierre and his teammates were sharp with their speed and maneuvers to win the race, but incurred a post-finish penalty for interfering with Emirates GBR – still racing. The pentalty point bumped Les Bleus to second in the event standings and the Swiss SailGP Team advanced into first.
The Spanish team took the win in fleet race six ahead of Australians and New Zealand. While the New Zealanders won the next, it wasn’t enough for the Black Foils after a mixed weekend for the team. “We’re a little frustrated to be honest,” said helmsman Peter Burling. “When we put it all together, we were there this weekend, but not quite enough to get into the final. It wasn’t meant to be.”
New Zealand finished fifth on the event leaderboard, which has them moving down to fourth overall. Emirates GBR finished seventh in the regatta – a weekend in which driver Dylan Fletcher said felt like the team “couldn’t catch a break.”
With the points tallied, Emirates GBR moves from first to second in the championship standings.
Coming in last in the event standings, U.S. SailGP Team flight controller Hans Henken expressed his disappointment: “We didn’t get the result we wanted here. We put in a lot of work leading into San Francisco – a lot of those things are going on behind the scenes but the results don’t show it. Obviously, we need to go back and put more work into it. The story is not over, we’re continuing to push really hard.”
In his post-race interview, US SailGP Team’s Taylor Canfield hinted at mechanical errors with the boat’s jib-sheet lead system on the second day, but back-of-the-fleet finishes on the first day of the regatta pointed to continued challenges facing the team as it comes to grips with the boat and the tight racecourses. While most of the US teams were starts were good, it was their exit position from the course’s first reach mark and the first boundary jibe that often put them into vulnerable and high-traffic situations. “Super frustrating,” was Canfield’s assessment. “We’ll have to clean up our act for the next one.”
The next event in Rio de Janiero in May where the Australians will hope to be back online with a replacement wing and the Danish sailors of Rockwool Team Denmark back with a repaired boat from damages in Los Angles that sidelined them entirely from the San Francisco regatta.
