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New Zealand yachting stars Peter Burling and Blair Tuke have won just about everything put in front of them. Now their sights are on SailGP.
Beware the flattery, but SailGP defending champion Tom Slingsby is talking up Peter Burling and Blair Tuke as the two best sailors in the world as they head New Zealand’s overdue entry into this global league. The 2021 SailGP season opens in Bermuda on Saturday (5am NZT) and the arrival of Burling and Tuke and other stars like Jimmy Spithill and Francesco Bruni to join the likes of Slingsby, Sir Ben Ainslie and Nathan Outteridge, takes the eight-boat fleet to a new level.
With the eight teams sailing identical supplied F50 cats, the Kiwis have managed to get in a couple of hours training on rival boats on each of the last three days while the SailGP technicians, who provide a central service to all the teams, have poured over the New Zealand boat to get it race-ready. The boat was rushed to Bermuda and, like its crew, was the last to arrive. They then hit a snag as the island was enveloped in a Covid resurgence that restricted the regatta’s last-minute preparations. For Burling and his crew of America’s Cup winners supplemented by women sailors Liv Mackay and Erica Dawson, it’s been a massive learning experience in terms of logistics and getting reacquainted with these radical boats.
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SailGP is now in its second season, with some of the best sailors in the world, sailing some of the fastest boats, going head-to-head in a global sailing series with a prize of $1m
When Larry Ellison and Russell Coutts launched SailGP back in 2018, the plan was that, by 2021, the series would be heading into its third consecutive season and starting to build some serious momentum. As with the rest of the sporting world, however, COVID-19 has caused some significant disruption.
The first season of SailGP racing showed the potential of the ambitious circuit, with spectacular racing at events like Cowes and Marseilles over the summer of 2019. But the second season barely got off the ground with just a single event completed – at Sydney in January 2020 – before the global pandemic and consequent lockdown forced organisers and teams to hit the pause button.
SailGP
A look at the increasing appeal of foiling catamaran racing on a global circuit initiated by Sir Russell Coutts.
It’s back to the future for Peter Burling, Blair Tuke, Josh Junior and Andy Maloney as they return to the scene of their first America’s Cup success. Fresh off their defence of the Auld Mug at Auckland 2021, the talented quartet head to Bermuda this month for the start of the second season of SailGP, a global series contested in the modified 50-foot foiling catamarans used at the America’s Cup there in 2017. Comparisons are going to be inevitable on the back of the giant step the latest America’s Cup took with the revolutionary 75-foot foiling monohulls.