SailGP: "System limit drastically escalated the situation" - Burling
by Richard Gladwell/Sail-World.com/nz 18 Feb 16:09 PST
Black Foils (NZL) and DS Automobiles (FRA) collide - Day 1 of ITM NZ SailGP - Auckland - February 14, 2026 © Simon Bruty/SailGP
Black Foils skipper Peter Burling says a foil system limit on their port foil, "drastically escalated the situation" ahead of the high speed collision with DS Automobiles, in Race 3 of ITM NZ SailGP in Auckland.
The incident took place with 200 metres to sail on the 500 metre Sprint leg, as the 13 boat fleet began to merge for the rounding of Mark 1.
"We had obviously started off with great first two races," he told a media conference at Auckland's Viaduct harbour on Thursday morning. "We were really enjoying the conditions and feeling comfortable in the boat."
"We started Race 3 and were going down Leg 1 to windward of the Italian boat. We ended up high on the foil and sliding sideways".
TheBlack Foils slid across the bow of the French boat and looked likely to overtake the Italian boat, with all three looking for the lead at the first mark, or end of what SailGP call "the Sprint Leg".
The Black Foils nose dived heeled suddenly to windward under upward pressue from the lowered port foil, and the rudder t-foil also appeared to break the surface of the water, along with the main T-Foil.
The French took limited avoiding action in the time and room available but could not avoid a collision. Their port bow rode overthe starboard hull of the Black Foils, just aft of the shrouds. Grinder Louis Sinclair was badly injured.
The Red Bull Italy team scooted clear of the melee, and was first around Mark 1, in the later abandoned race.
"I knew the French were behind us," Burling continued. "But my focus was very much on missing the Italians."
"In the slide when things were all escalating, reasonably quickly, I think we got within about two meters of the Italians."
"So we definitely didn't have any more room on that leeward side before we touched down, and really did everything we could to avoid that one, but obviously didn't have enough enough space for the French to get past us. It's something that everyone's trying to work together really hard to keep these boats apart, and obviously we weren't able to do that this time."
Responding to a question that the incident was due to operator error, Burling replied:
"Well, the boat was working as it should work. As I said before, we hit a system limit when we were high on the foil. So I think there's a combination of a lot of factors that lead to this, but definitely in the seconds before the incident, the system limit drastically escalated the situation, which meant we had to take a pretty evasive action to avoid the Italians."
Asked to explain the system limit, Burling responded:
"It controls how negative you can go with the rake on the leeward foil. It's really there to prevent another problem."
Asked what the Black Foils could have done if the system limit hadn't been triggered, Burling said, with a shrug of his shoulders: It's always incredibly hard to say - it's a 'woulda, coulda' situation there, but the limit definitely didn't help."
"The F50s are definitely very challenging boats to sail, and you have the best sailors in the world out there that are very well practiced and experienced sailing them. I think that's something that we've all got to make sure we really learn from these incidents."
"Saturday's conditions weren't out of the ordinary for us," wingsail trimmer Blair Tuke added. "It was, flat water. The gusts were hitting quite hard off Westhaven, but it was well within the limits of the boat. As you saw on Sunday, they raced, you know, in much windier conditions than that. So we were, as Peter mentioned we were well in control in that reach until we got this slide going."
Asked to compare the Auckland conditions with those in Fremantle for the opening round of Season 6, Burling said "it was very flat water here, with the wind blowing off the breakwater, so compared to Fremantle, it was a lot flatter. And not too dissimilar, breeze, to be honest."
The Black Foils will not be sailing at the next event in Sydney and are awaiting advice from the SailGP league as to when they will be racing again.
The French boat DS Automobiles is being re-engineered at Southern Spars in Auckland, using their starboard hull, connected to the port hull of the Blackfoils, using the crossbeams from the French boat to create a new platform. The French wingsail has been de-skinned and taken to Southern Spars, who built the Emirates Team NZ America's Cup winning AC50 in 2016/17.