The secret to New Zealand’s success in Christchurch has been revealed by data provided by the F50 fleet.
Data provided by Oracle Insights shows that the Black Foils overtook more boats than any other team across the event, with an average Mark 1 position of 5.7 and average finishing position of 2.3.
This allowed the Kiwis to blast past the Canadians in the third fleet race and secure their place alongside France and Canada in the three-boat Final.
Despite this, the Black Foils didn’t secure the best start of the three. Canada was quickest to cross the line after the gun - an average of 1.5 seconds compared to New Zealand’s 1.6 and France’s 1.7, while France had the highest starting speed - 69.9 km/h.
By contrast, New Zealand’s starting speed was 65.8 km/h and Canada’s was 63.4 km/h.
When it came to distance from the line, Canada was closest - just 26.7m away, while France was 34.8m away and New Zealand was 29.3m away.
But the Kiwis minimized maneuvers (a total of 8 compared to France’s 8 and Canada’s 10) and sailed the shortest distance (8,606.3m compared to France’s 8,624.4m and Canada’s 8,952.8m) to take the lead. The Black Foils were also only one of two boats (the other being France) to have a 100% flight time across all races.
The Kiwis also picked up the highest average speed over the course of the Final - 59.8 km/h compared to Canada’s 58.3 km/h and France’s 58.8 km/h.
Being top of all these metrics allowed the Kiwis to take - and hang onto - the lead, to cross the Finish line first.
Powered by Oracle, SailGP Insights is an online dashboard which provides fans with huge amounts of data from our cutting-edge racing F50 catamarans.
