Santander Worlds - 49ers Burling and Tuke clear ahead
by Rob Kothe and Jedda Murphy on 22 Sep 2014
2014 ISAF Sailing World Championship, Santander - Burling and Tuke (NZL), 49er Sailing Energy
New Zealanders Peter Burling and Blair Tuke, the London 2012 Silver medallists, the 2013 49er World Champions, won the ISAF 49er World Championships in Santander yesterday, a day before the Medal Race. So the Medal Race became a podium battle but not before the Kiwi dual stamped their authority on the class with an impressive Medal Race victory.
Peter Burling, was in an expansive mood in the Duna boat park today.
This week has been the climax of a great season, we are very pleased to have successfully defended our 49er World title, we`ve not been beaten in the last seven 49er regatta and we want to keep that run going.
‘Blair and I have proven to be a good combination, we started sailing together in 2009. Blair had done 29ers as a youth and had then done two Tornado Worlds. I was 17 when I sailed with Carl Evans in Beijing 2008 in the 470’s.'
'Blair and I knew each other well and we were both keen to do a 49er campaign is how it all came about.'
'The real key to success for us in London, was the training partnership we had with the Aussies. Early on Nathan was giving us a lot more than we were giving him and I think towards the end of it we started to give them a fair bit back. It is definitely something that you look back and say it was one of the things that got us both to the front of the fleet and it was really cool.'
'We finished behind Nath and Goobs in London but they have not beaten us since.'
Burling commented, ‘It has been a pretty good week. But the field is getting closer. Rio was our tightest of the year so far.'
'Nathan and Iain definitely put in a lot of time in before this event and back in the 49er and they were going a lot better than they were last year but Nathan is carrying an injury so I don’t think we have seen them at their best yet.'
'We still do a fair bit of training together at events. Now there is a mass of other sailing programs now so it’s a lot harder to get training blocks together, but we are still really good mates. When it comes to an event we are lining up together, checking in and testing together. It’s pretty cool to see them having a pretty good week this week as well.'
'We expect to see a lot of them over the next two years but as you saw today there are definitely other guys that will be in there as well I would say. The Danish boys are pretty handy. Jonas Warrer, the Qindao Gold Medallist and his crew Anders Thomsen who took silver here today.'
'The British guys if they have a good week are pretty hard to stop as well and the French can run hot...'
'We are looking forward to the next two years. I think there will be a whole group of us that will have a pretty good battle. Come games time it always ends up being tighter in the one design class and its one of those things we have got to keep pushing on.'
If you want to link to this article then please use this URL: www.sail-world.com/126964
