SailGP: Australia win two races on Day 1 and the start of Season 4
by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World NZ 16 Jun 2023 15:42 PDT
Emirates Great Britain SailGP Team and the fleet in action on Race Day 1 of the Rolex United States Sail Grand Prix | Chicago © Ricardo Pinto/SailGP
Australia's Tom Slingsby led crew won the Race 1 and Race 3 in the opening round of SailGP Season 4 in Chicago.
After a startline snafu in Race 2, the Australians recovered well to place 5th over the line.
The racing was conducted on Lake Michigan in breezes of 11-12kts.
Going into the two fleet races on the Final Day the three places in the Final will be contested by just four teams, with a big points separation between Denmark (4th) and Great Britain (5th).
Overall points and Places after Day 1
1. Australia - 26pts (1, 5, 1)
2. New Zealand - 25pts (4, 2, 2)
3. Canada - 24pts (3, 1, 5)
4. Denmark - 21pts (5, 4, 3)
5. Great Britain - 16pts (2, 7, 8)
6. Spain - 14pts (6, 9, 4)
7. France - 14pts (7, 3, 9)
8. Germany - 10pts (8, 8, 7)
9. USA - 8pts (9, 10, 6)
10. Switzerland - 7pts (10, 6, 10)
With a switch of territorial broadcaster in New Zealand from Sky TV to a free to air channel, who elected to run the coverage only on their App - which never got off playing ads for us, we don't have a lot of other detail, other what was possible by getting a live commentary on one source, video from another and graphics from the App.