The New Zealand SailGP Team, the Black Foils, have provided their clearest account yet of the events that led to the high speed collision with DS Automobiles SailGP Team France during Race 3 of the ITM New Zealand Sail Grand Prix | Auckland.
Speaking at a media briefing, co CEO and driver Peter Burling described a rapid sequence that unfolded in seconds as the fleet charged down the second leg of the course.
“We had obviously started off with a great first two races. We’re really enjoying the conditions and feeling comfortable in the boat,” Burling said.
“In race three, we’re going down reach one to windward of the Italian boat. We ended up high on the foil and sliding sideways. And then we hit a system limit, which drastically escalated that situation.”
The system limit relates to control of rake on the leeward foil. Burling confirmed that once that limit was reached, the situation intensified quickly.
“Then we had to take a kind of quite drastic action to avoid the Italian boat to leeward, which led to us touching down, and then obviously the incident followed that.”
The touchdown occurred at speed. Contact with the French F50 followed immediately, resulting in severe structural damage to both boats and the abandonment of the race.
Burling rejected any suggestion of a simple explanation.
“The boat was working as it should work,” he said.
“We, as I said before, had a system limit when we were high on the foil, so I think there’s a combination of a lot of factors that led to this.”
Importantly, the team did not attribute the incident to the prevailing conditions on the Waitematā Harbour.
Blair Tuke addressed that directly.
“Saturday’s conditions weren’t out of the ordinary for us. It was flat water. Yes, the gusts were hitting quite hard off Westhaven there, but it was well within the limits of the boat.”
He added: “We were well in control in that region until we got the slide going.”
The fleet had been tightly grouped at the time, with minimal separation between boats as they accelerated around the course. In those compressed margins and at close to 90 kilometres per hour, small changes escalate rapidly.
SailGP has confirmed that a formal review is underway. Onboard data, footage and system inputs will be analysed as part of that process.
For the Black Foils, the focus now is on accuracy and review rather than speculation.
As Burling noted, the sequence unfolded quickly, and “that’s all part of the wider review process from here and really how we make the plan go forward.”
