The New Zealand Team wins the New York stage of the Mubadala SailGP in a culminating a week full of events. The racing was a mix of light winds and shortened courses to full on week and spectacular sailing with boats foiling across the Hudson in view of the New York skyline and visitors lined up on both the New York and New Jersey side of the water. There were also quite a few spectator boats stretched along the outskirts of the course to take in the action.
There is a $2 million prize at stake so the sailors are taking each race very seriously. The race is a new concept on sailing judging. Craig Mitchell and his team of umpires are in London, England calling the decisions refereeing during the season. They are watching from many multiple screens and calling mistakes and penalties from afar. Although they have a fantastic view of the action from the many camera’s installed both on the course and on the boats themselves.
The actual teams were coached from the stadium booths for each team set up on Governors Island and they too were watching from screens as well as seeing the action play out in front of them. This has the coached on land instead of the older formats where they would have been on boats giving instructions to the boat captains.
Three-time defending SailGP champion Tom Slingsby and Team Australia missed the podium race for the second straight regatta but leap-frogged Spain into second place in the season standings. The Aussies went 9-1 in Sunday’s two fleet races and finished fourth overall.
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At the penultimate event in New York, skipper Taylor Canfield’s team languished at the back of the fleet throughout all four fleet races to end with a 10-10-10-9 race record. This meant the team finished behind even Germany, which began the event on -4 points after picking up a penalty in practice racing.
USA changed up their team recently and still have not found their groove. Taylor Canfield is confident that with time the team will mesh and starting bringing in wins.
There was exciting racing going on and many times the winds picked up speed on Sunday. The USA team didn’t quite give the showing they had hoped for. But there will be times in the future for them as the SailGP events are growing in popularity and will be part of the new wave in how some sailing events are taking place.
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Season 4 Standings (after 12 of 13 events; results and total points)
1. New Zealand (Peter Burling), 1-7-8-DNC/6-4-1-1-3-1-2-5; 93 points
2. Australia (Tom Slingsby), 2-3-2-2-3-2-7-1-10-3-7; 78
3. Spain (Diego Botin), 5-1-3-6-6-10-2-5-4-1-4; 76
4. France (Quintin Delapierre), 6-8-6-4-7-4-4-4-2-9-2; 71
5. Canada (Phil Robertson), 3-4-10-5-5-3-6-10-3-4-6; 67
6. Denmark (Nicolai Sehested), 4-2-4-7-2-6-9-2-9-5-3; 67
7. Great Britain (Ben Ainslie/Giles Scott), 7-6-1-1-8-5-8-7-7-8-1; 66
8. United States (Jimmy Spithill/Taylor Canfield), 9-5-5-3-1-8-3-9-8-10-10; 51
9. Germany (Erik Heil), 10-10-7-8-9-10-9-5-6-5-6-8; 35
10. Switzerland (Sebastien Schneiter/Nathan Outteridge), 8-9-9-9-7-10-8-6-7-9; 33
The racing will continue in San Francisco, CA on July 13-14, 2024
Plus, now during the New York racing week it was announced the first South American team will join in the next edition of SailGP. Brazil will be entering a team for next year. So, things are heating up for Mabadula SailGP as they expand and take in more countries and a larger audience as they grow.
