Aussie rally to win SailGP San Francisco – GB finishes 3rd

Spectators waved their favourite teams’ colours from the packed Marina Yacht Club Peninsula Race Village as they witnessed the Australia SailGP Team repeat as champions with victory over Japan to win the U.S. debut of SailGP.

After two days of racing at San Francisco SailGP, the Australia SailGP Team, helmed by Olympic gold medalist Tom Slingsby, took the top honour. Proving the ultimate come-back kids after struggling in training and a disappointing day of racing on Saturday, they defeated the Japanese team in the final match race to win the event and go two points up in the overall season rankings and a step closer to the $1 million prize.

San Francisco Bay lived up to its name over the weekend, delivering spectacular conditions that provided the ultimate test of skill and stamina for the elite athletes racing on the world’s fastest race boats. Fans had a courtside seat to the speed and drama, witnessing speeds of over 45 knots literally just off the shore.

“We’re stoked, it’s no secret that we struggled all week,” said Slingsby. “Nathan Outteridge and his Japan team were better, but we kept saying we are going to come back. We left it late, but we did come back and won the match race and then the event.”

After dominating the opening day, winning all three races in an impressive showing, Outteridge’s team couldn’t hold off Slingsby’s charge. Despite a close battle in the final match race, Outteridge later noted that a software issue meant that they were ‘sailing blind’ around the race course.

“As soon as something doesn’t work, it makes it very hard, it’s like asking a race car driver to drive a car where the brakes aren’t working,” said Outteridge. “The last race we lost the display software that tells us the time to the start, time to boundaries, shows a diagram of where you are on the course, so we raced the last race blind. Considering all that happened today, to still come second here and still pushing hard is great. Yesterday was the highlight for our team so far.”

With two wins out of two, the Australian team takes top spot on the overall Season 1 leaderboard, with just two points separating the top two teams going into the next event in New York, June 21-22.

Taking its first SailGP race win, Great Britain was one of the standout performers of the weekend, finishing third overall and maintaining the same position on the overall leaderboard.

One team that will be glad of a second chance to take a win on home soil is the young U.S. team. Having improved significantly going into the weekend, finishing just off the podium in fourth place, they are hungry to improve.

“We are going to go back again and go through the data, look at everything we learned and keep building on that,” said U.S. helm Rome Kirby. “We want to keep the learning curve going and keep progressing. It’s time to hit the books ahead of New York.”

“San Francisco was everything we hoped it would be. It provided a spectacular backdrop for our U.S. debut, a fantastic challenge for our world class athletes and an exciting spectacle for the fans,” said SailGP CEO Russell Coutts. “All of the teams have really stepped up a gear and it shows what effect the open access to data is having on the teams’ performance. It’s certainly going to make the next event in New York even more exciting.”

SailGP next heads to New York over the weekend of June 21-22.

SailGP details – Team rosters – Results – Where to watch – Facebook

SailGP Season 1 – Leaderboard
1st – Australia – 93pts
2nd – Japan – 91pts
3rd – Great Britain – 79pts
4th – United States – 68pts
5th – France – 61pts
6th – China – 60pts

San Francisco SailGP – Overall
1st – Australia – 47pts
2nd – Japan – 46pts
3rd – Great Britain – 43pts
4th – United States – 37pts
5th – France – 28pts
6th – China – 27pts

Race 1
1st – Japan – 10pts
2nd – Australia – 9pts
3rd – Great Britain – 8pts
4th – United States – 7pts
5th – France – 6pts
6th – China – 5pts

Race 2
1st – Japan – 10pts
2nd – Australia – 9pts
3rd – United States – 8pts
4th – Great Britain – 7pts
5th – China – 6pts
6th – France – 5pts

Race 3
1st – Japan – 10pts
2nd – Great Britain – 9pts
3rd – Australia – 8pts
4th – United States – 7pts
5th – China – 6pts
6th – France – 5pts

Race 4
1st – Great Britain – 10pts
2nd – Japan – 9pts
3rd – Australia – 8pts
4th – United States – 7pts
5th – France – 6pts
6th – China – 5pts

Race 5
1st – Australia – 10pts
2nd – Great Britain – 9pts
3rd – United States – 8pts
4th – Japan – 7pts
5th – France – 6pts
6th – China – 5pts

Match Final
1st – Australia – 3pts*
2nd – Japan – 0pts

*To ensure the team with the highest score wins the event, the winner of the final match race receives one point if they are the top ranked team going into the match race, or one point more than the score of the number one ranked team if they finished second going into the match race.

Published on May 5th, 2019.