A scoreless opening race on Sunday left Black Foils needing a strong response. They led around the first mark in the deciding race, only for the Swiss to move ahead after a split at the gate and clinch the final qualifying spot in their group.
“It was a really up-and-down day for the team. We definitely had our worst race of the event in that first one,” said Black Foils co-CEO and driver Peter Burling.
“But I think the team did an awesome job bouncing back from that, leading at mark 1 in that final race and really giving ourselves a shot to make it in the final. We felt like we deserved to be in the final this weekend, but it wasn’t quite to be.”
The Black Foils finished sixth and second in Sunday’s two races, ending Group B on 13 points, one behind Explora Journeys Swiss.
An early foul by the Swiss forced the Black Foils off their foils in Sunday’s opening race, dropping the Kiwis from third to fifth. With the boat foiling again and closing in on the fleet, a button failure led to a boundary penalty that allowed the Swiss through at the final turn to claim the last available point.
“It felt like everything that could go against us did, with a big incident with the Swiss down the first run and then a button failing, which got us that boundary penalty later on in the race,” Burling said.
Australia’s BONDS Flying Roos led the four-boat final from the start, but Spain’s Los Gallos split from them at the first gate, then found the speed to foil past and claim their third win in five events. The Australians had to settle for second, with Denmark’s ROCKWOOL Racing completing the podium and home team Explora Journeys Swiss fourth.
The Black Foils earned six championship points for fifth place and remain 12th in the Rolex SailGP Championship on 27 points, after the team missed four events following February’s Auckland collision.
Burling took plenty of encouragement from the team’s progress since Valencia.
“We’re really proud of the way we’ve managed to step forward a long, long way from Valencia,” he said. “It felt like the boat was going really fast. There are just a few decisions and a few incidents we need to keep tidying up.”
Before returning to racing in the Middle East, the Black Foils will head to Pensacola, Florida, for a training camp at SailGP’s first long-term training base. The shared facility gives all teams access to on-water support and technical specialists to train and test outside race weekends.
