SailGP: Black Foils in top three overall in Cadiz - Day1
by Ben Mackey - Black Foils 5 Oct 12:21 NZDT
Black Foils - New Zealand - Day 1 - DP World Spain Sail Grand Prix - Cadiz, Spain - October 3, 2025 © Ricardo Pinto/SailGP
A busy day of racing in Cádiz sees the Black Foils in the hunt at the DP World Spain Sail Grand Prix.
Conditions meant an afternoon of challenging four up racing with the majority of the fleet having a mixture of results across the four fleet races.
The team’s third placing overall was built from a strong series of starts in the final three fleet races of the day after a challenging opening race that saw them finish eleventh.
After that result the Kiwi team were able to string together results of second, sixth and third. The third place in the final race crucially came ahead of Germany to be ahead of them while tied on 22 total points.
The day also featured a penalty in a close call with Australia in the opening race and a button issue in the third race that saw them come off the foils while leading the race at the opening mark before losing places to the middle of the fleet.
Denmark’s Rockwool Racing lead the event on 32 points with Emirates Great Britain just behind on 31.
Black Foils Co-CEO and Driver Peter Burling said there were a lot of positives to take from the day.
“We will definitely kick ourselves looking back at the first start. I think we had a really good day starting, but it could have been good starts in all four. In that first one we had a great gap through the top end and then just kind of got caught up with Denmark and ended up bit too high. But overall we are really pleased with the way our starting has been going. I think we've been doing some really good starts since Sassnitz, which is a massive credit to the group pushing that.”
Burling also noted the team had some challenging moments after those good starts.
“It felt like we also got super unlucky at times today. With the penalty in the first run of the first race, we felt Tom (Slingsby) got super lucky not to get it. Then a stuck button in the third race with a massive lead at the first mark was tough as well, but I think the team did a good job fighting back and we are right in the hunt for tomorrow.”
Burling also added that the conditions made for exciting racing.
“The breeze was just windy enough. You could actually foil and then there was plenty of thrust so when you made a little mistake, you could kind of recover from that, so we were really enjoying the conditions. It felt like we were sailing the boat really well. When we were around other boats, we were always kind of moving forward and we felt really comfortable. We are looking forward to tomorrow.”