SailGP Diary: Race Day 2 - January 19: Big breeze asks plenty of questions

Race Day 2 - Auckland SailGP - January 19, 2024 © Richard Gladwell - Sail-World.com/nz

A fresh breeze and awkward seastate tested crews on the second day of SailGP Auckland. The crack Australian crew skippered by Tom Slingsby made it look easy - despite a perceived breakdown.

A wind warning was in force for the Hauraki Gulf and at race time at Channel Island at the entrance to the Hauraki Gulf it was gusting 37kts.

That dropped closer to the race area, where it was 25kts gusting 27kts, and 22kts gusting 25kts at Northern Leading just off North Head.

In short it was a real test for the crews, sailing in top-end conditions and an awkward seastate created by a 3metre flood tide from the same direction as the hefty breeze. With the tide a couple of hours off high water, there was the usual bounceback from the seawalls which border the southern (grandstand) side of the course.

The direction was the same as Saturday 070° - blowing around Stanley Point (the cliffs you can see in the background of start images), which had a significant effect on wind strength and direction - particularly at the start.

After the racing the skippers were sanguine about their relative performances and the performance of the F50 in what most described as top end racing conditions. It was also just the second day of racing using the new T-foils, under all the pressure in the congested high octane, short course stadium with the F50s randomly red-lining - and asking plenty of questions of the 11 teams.

Seven of those teams were skippered by Olympic Gold medalists - with a total of ten Olympic Golds between them, let alone on the rest of the crew. The two of the co-helms in the 2024 America's Cup Match were competing. It was an event packed with sailing superstars.

The overriding point with SailGP is that the TV coverage does not do the event justice. It is way above that level, in fact coming home and looking at the replay it was hard to believe that it was the same event.

The other factor, implicit in the fact that this was the first event sailing with the new T-Foils meant there were several issues which appear on TV as flight control and other crew errors. Post race several skippers said they had communication improvements to be made within the crews - some of who are new this season. Interestingly Black Foils skipper Peter Burling despite competing with the core of his Season 4 SailGP and America's Cup winning crews, claimed they were a new crew. A nod to the inclusion of Flight Controller Leonard Takahashi. Others, of course, were in the same situation the Australians also had a new crew member in Chris Draper - and the changes were dotted all through the fleet.

It also must be remembered that some crews, like USA, are trying to run with national crews only.

And let's face it, USA isn't one of the worlds great sailing nations at present, and hasn't been for some time at Olympic and most other levels.

Others opt to hire the best that money can buy - and can use their maximum of three imports into their national team, to bolster performance. Coaches are exempt from the nationality rule and there is some top talent sitting in the coaching booth like Hamish Willcox (NZL) coaching for Spain, Philippe Presti (FRA) doing the same for Italy, Francesco Bruni (ITA) with Denmark, Jacopo Plazzi (ITA) for Germany and others through the fleet - many are not shown on the team lists for the Auckland event.