ROCKWOOL Denmark SailGP Team sits in seventh spot heading into Race Day 2 of the Emirates Dubai Sail Grand Prix presented by P&O Marinas after a tricky day saw it come up short in the final race – setting up a tough challenge on Sunday.
The Danes grabbed a pair of fourths in Races 1 and 2 to keep themselves in the mix on Saturday, but a disappointing final outing leaves the ROCKWOOL boat seven points behind the leaders, and six points behind the podium spots, at half-time.
“We just couldn’t seem to get off the line,” admits Sehested after racing. “I think, in order to try and get the best start, maybe we are taking too much risk and getting tangled up with other teams.”
He adds: “We need to focus on getting ourselves off the line, and make sure we find a clean start so we can find our lane.”
After the first trio of races, Denmark has accumulated 14 points – and needs a strong Sunday in order to keep chances of a podium alive.
Australia SailGP Team – with stand-in skipper Jimmy Spithill – top the standings after Race Day 1 in Dubai with 26 points, as Spithill’s old team, United States SailGP Team, has struggled to get going in its first event under new ownership, finishing in last spot with just seven points.
It has been almost two months since the previous event in Cádiz, Spain, but Sehested isn’t convinced that the gap has had a negative effect on his team.
“It has been a longer period between events, and it’s difficult to know who is benefitting the most from those gaps – the teams who have other activity outside of SailGP, or the ones who don’t.
“All I know is that today we were struggling to get going, but we can’t get down about it – we have to keep our heads up. We still have a chance to come back, and we have done it before.”
“It isn’t where we want to be, we have higher standards than this. But we have a chance to put it right on Sunday and post another solid result on the board.”
