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Even more Kiwi sailing fans can catch this weekend's action from the final round of SailGP in San Francisco, with free-to-air coverage now available.
The New Zealand SailGP Team are fifth overall heading into into the round of season two when the US$1 million purse will go to the series winner. Australia, who took out season one, hold a narrow lead over the United States and then Japan.
You can catch the live coverage as usual on Sky TV from 10am (NZT) on both Sunday and Monday as well as free-to-air coverage on nzherald.co.nz/sailgp.
Peter Burling is hoping San Francisco’s notorious breeze can blow away a few of his New Zealand SailGP team’s frustrations, writes Duncan Johnstone from stuff.co.nz.
The Kiwis head into the final event of the second season of the global league in fifth place with their hopes of making the US$1m winner-takes-all grand final, all but dashed.
Their first foray into this championship has been a series of “what-ifs”, a steep learning curve resulting in some hard lessons for a star-studded crew without a podium race from seven regattas.
Excuses aren’t part of Burling’s makeup, and he sees a chance to not only make something out of the last event of the championship, but also get some much-needed momentum for the start of season three which happens in Bermuda in mid-May.
The northern Californian city seems a good spot for a bit of a restart and tweaks have been going on in the Kiwi camp.
“San Francisco is one of those places where you can almost predict the weather without looking at the forecast,” Burling said.
“With the 2013 America’s Cup, there was always a breeze, always from the same direction. That’s what you expect here. We are really looking forward to sailing in a bit of consistent strong wind.”
Burling wasn’t part of Team New Zealand’s heartbreaking campaign at this venue, but he did win the Youth America’s Cup that year. It’s the last time he raced on the inshore course in the shadow of the famous Golden Gate Bridge and he has fond memories of the conditions.
The wind has been up during practice runs and the Kiwis have been thriving in it. They’ve also really appreciated the chance to get in two extra practice days on the tricky 50-foot foiling catamarans, whose sail time is closely monitored by the league organisers.
“Training time is something we relish as a new team,” Burling said.
“For us, it is really the proper training time we have had before an event. At least this week we get a bit of extra training beforehand, and we can make some changes and have time to get to a level where we can race like it.
“It has been a tricky season. We feel we have been improving, but things just haven’t swung our way so far.
“But every event we feel like we are getting closer to the podium race. We have made some pretty big changes for this event with the way we sail the boat, so we want to take that forward in performance.”
New Zealand are relishing the prospect of some steady wind for the SailGP regatta in San Francisco.
Burling and Tuke were masters at squeezing everything out of their one-design 49er Olympic class and the F50s offer growth within the strict limitations as the complicated systems become more second-nature
They have been training under the watchful eye of their new coach Ray Davies, who comes across from Team New Zealand. Davies has a good understanding of the boats, the crew, and the venue. He is also a wizard of tactics for fleet racing and match racing.
Now that they had settled into the league, Burling felt the time was right to bring in a coaching resource to help them bridge the gap on the leading boats from Australia, the United States and Japan.
“Right at the beginning we wanted to get our feet on the ground and work out exactly what we needed,” Burling explained.
“The great thing about Ray is, now that we are getting to the pointy end of the learning curve, we have done so much with him in the past that we can really continue to grow that relationship we have.”
