Like pinballs catapulted onto the track: F50 catamarans almost 100 kilometres per hour fast!
On the first of the two days of racing at the Range Rover France SailGP off Saint-Tropez, the fleet often looked as if someone had shot the F50 catamarans onto the course like pinballs. The nine boats raced across the course in strong winds several times all at the same time at speeds of over 80 kilometres per hour as if there was no tomorrow.
First the British set a new speed record, then the French. From now on, the aim is to beat the 99.94 kilometres per hour that Quentin Delapierre and his Les Bleus achieved on 10 September. This consolation had to be enough for the Equipe Tricolore. After a high-speed start and agonisingly slow races on the second day of the SailGP, the French hosts narrowly missed out on a place in the triple final in fourth place overall.
Other teams also lost out in the battle to reach the final at this fifth of a total of eleven regattas in the third SailGP season. The Canadians, for example, with the always furious New Zealander Phil Robertson at the helm. The Canadians, new to the SailGP this season, experienced a dramatic near-capsize on day one and didn't get off to the same start as when they started. They finished the main round in last place behind the surprisingly fifth-placed Australians and the following Danes, Spaniards and Swiss.
Just like in the America's Cup: Spithill, Burling and Ainslie battle for victory
After the chase scenes of the previous day, three crews coped best with the extremely light wind conditions on the second day of the SailGP: the US team led by America's Cup star Jimmy Spithill, the New Zealanders who recently won twice and the experienced Brits led by Olympic record winner Sir Ben Ainslie reached the triple final. Until then, thousands of fans in Saint-Tropez had experienced several track shortenings and relentless crawls around the course on Sunday. The final fleet race, in which the Canadians finally took the lead for once, was cancelled by race control a few seconds before the finish when the time limit was reached.
With the most famous helmsmen Sir Ben Ainslie (Great Britain), Peter Burling (New Zealand) and Jimmy Spithill (USA), three experts and their outstanding teams met in the final. Quite a few were reminded of America's Cup battles of the past. Even the start was unusual, as the usually precise Peter Burling and his Kiwis made a narrow but clearly visible early start. In order to clear up the resulting penalty, they first had to drop behind their opponents in accordance with the regulations before they were allowed to attack again. They only partially recovered from this.
Crawl in the final: Jimmy Spithill wins the nerve poker
Jimmy Spithill, his wing trimmer Hans Henken and the Americans benefited the most from the New Zealanders' early start mishap. They were able to pull away slightly in the race crawl at sometimes pitiful boat speeds of less than ten kilometres per hour. As if in slow motion, the catamarans, which had raced across the course the day before, sluggishly pushed themselves through the water with both hulls.
The final also ended with a shortened course. In the end, two-time America's Cup winner Jimmy Spithill brought the US bow tops across the line first and before the time limit expired. The New Zealanders and the British, who had no chance in this encounter, followed. Although Spithill's US team was unable to improve on its previous seventh place in the overall standings thanks to this coup after a disastrous start to the season, it was able to significantly reduce the gap to the teams ahead of it. The aggressive helmsman was correspondingly optimistic: "This is a great result for our team. Now we will start our season comeback. Yesterday was one of the most impressive experiences I've had in the SailGP so far. We are very, very happy about our victory today."
Jimmy Spithill: "You should never give too much credit to outside voices"
When asked about the criticism his team had to put up with after their rather poor performances up to the breakthrough in France, Spithill said: "You should never give too much credit to outside voices. We will now build on this result." Click here for the results of the Land Rover France Sail Grand Prix in Saint-Tropez.
Peter Burling's New Zealanders continued their winning streak of recent months with second place at the SailGP in Saint-Tropez. They had previously won twice and are now just one point behind the Australians, who are still leading the overall standings by a narrow margin and are led by the sailing jack-of-all-trades Tom Slingsby. Two weeks before the Spanish SailGP on 24 and 25 September in Cadiz, Ben Ainslie's Brits are in third place in the season rankings. Here it goes to the interim season results after five of eleven SailGP regattas.
