Switzerland’s improved racing performance in Singapore was largely down to the team’s excellent stating, especially on the second day of racing.
Singapore marked the best event yet for Sebastien Schneiter’s team, which picked up a 6-8-1-2 racing record, netted its first race win and finished just two points shy of its first Final.
Data provided from the fleet’s nine-strong F50 fleet shows that Switzerland took the shortest amount of time to cross the line after the gun, just 0.3 seconds, and was consistently positioned closest to the line - an average of just two meters.
By comparison, Denmark was the next quickest to cross the line - an average of 1 second, while New Zealand was third fastest with 1.2 seconds.
The slowest team to cross the line was Ben Ainslie’s Great Britain - an average of 3.6 seconds.
Time to Cross the Line (seconds)
| SUI | DEN | NZL | FRA | AUS | CAN | USA | ESP | GBR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.3s | 1s | 1.2s | 1.8s | 1.8s | 2s | 2s | 2.8s | 3.6s |
But it was a different story when it came to boat speed. New Zealand had the highest average starting speed in Singapore - an average of 39 km/h, while Great Britain had the slowest - 17.6 km/h. Switzerland was ahead of Great Britain and the United States’ 20.6 km/h with an average starting speed of 21.6 km/h
Boat Speed at the Line (km/h)
| NZL | DEN | AUS | ESP | FRA | CAN | SUI | USA | GBR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 39 | 37.4 | 31.2 | 28.2 | 27.4 | 23.2 | 21.6 | 20.6 | 17.6 |
When it came to distance, Denmark was positioned the second closest to the line - an average of 5.7 meters, while Spain was the furthest by some margin - 22.8 meters - behind Canada’s 19.7 meters.
As a result of their excellent starts, the Swiss had one of the highest mark one rankings in the fleet - an average of 3.8 - behind New Zealand’s 3.4 and Denmark’s 3.1.
On the second day of racing, Switzerland was in the top three boats to reach mark one in both fleet races. They were third to mark one in the third fleet race behind France and New Zealand - finishing first overall, and reached mark one second behind Denmark in the fourth race - finishing second overall behind New Zealand.
Mark one rankings vs finishing positions data however shows that across all four races the Swiss dropped an average of three positions from their mark one position.
Teams including Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand and the United States consistently improved their mark one positions by the end of the race. All other teams lost positions throughout the races and were in worse positions at the finish line than they were at mark one.
This ranged from minimal drops, such as Australia’s 0.2, to Switzerland and France, which lost an average respective 3 and 3.9 positions in the journey from mark one to the finish line.
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