The Black Foils are in second after day one of the ROCKWOOL Canada Sail Grand Prix, the fleet’s first-time ever racing in Halifax.
In today’s three races the Black Foils managed consistency when their closest rivals Australia and Spain didn’t, putting them in the top two and only one point off the lead going into Championship Sunday in Halifax.
Black Foils Driver Peter Burling said while not a perfect day, he's happy with their overall position going into day two. In the opening race, the team pulled off a stellar comeback coming from dead last on leg five, to claw back a 5th place finish.
Burling said: “In the first half of the first race we were really struggling to find our feet and we made a few mistakes. It was good to get back into it by the end and put together a couple of solid ones to finish.”
“It felt like we left a whole heap of points out there, but it was nice to get off the startline reasonably well. Coming out of today we’re really happy that we put together three solid scores to be at the right end of the leaderboard going into tomorrow.”
The Kiwis pulled off three top five finishes with a 5th, a 2nd and a 4th - no mean feat in the gusty, variable conditions ranging from 8-22 knots on the tight inner-city course.
Burling said, “It was puffy and shifty, and very hard to find the stability to execute manoeuvres. We had some good ones and some shockers. It was one of those days where you needed to be in the pressure and go as fast as you could through the lulls.”
But Burling said the team was by no means resting on their laurels after day one; “We’re here to try and win for sure. You can’t win it on day one, but you can lose it on the first day.”
The stacked shoreline and sell-out crowd in Halifax were treated to plenty of action with heart-stopping moments and close calls metres from the shoreline. All ten F50s came away unscathed, but the leaderboard shows it was a tough day for the strategists and no one got it right all the time.
Giles Scott and the GBR team were the winners today with Great Britain top of the standings after three races, while at the far end Taylor Canfield’s USA team struggled, clocking up three lasts.
From here all ten boats are back on the harbour for two more fleet races tomorrow, starting at 4pm local time, before only the top three head into the winner-takes-all final.
After ten events, New Zealand leads the overall standings, entering the weekend with a ten-point lead ahead of Australia. Pressure weighs heavily on the entire fleet in the final push to the winner-takes-all $2 million Season 4 Grand Final in San Francisco next month (13-14 July).
The most exciting racing on water returns tomorrow Sunday 2 June at 4pm local time (Monday 7am NZT), live and on-demand on ThreeNow.
