The SailGP Grand Final in San Francisco is 32 days away. Unlike any other sailboat race there is money on the line. In the immortal words of Austin Powers, the winner of the grand final race gets: “$1 million dollars”. We know that Australia, who won the last two grand finals, will be in the race with New Zealand, and the third boat will be either France or Great Britain. Half way through the season it was not at all certain that New Zealand would be in the grand final at all.
Here is the same chart we looked at yesterday showing how each team stacked up for the season as they rounded each mark of each race. After the first 18 races, New Zealand was not in the top 3.
SailGP has attracted very good sailors to compete in their events. This is absolutely the case with the New Zealand boat. On board are Skipper Pete Burling and Wing Trimmer Blair Tuke, who have been winning together in many events including the Olympics, the round the world Ocean Race, and the Americas Cup. Most any sailor would be happy with the box in Pete’s garage holding the sailing trophies that don’t fit on his trophy shelf.
In sailboat racing, the start is a timed countdown situation where there is a big advantage to the boats going fast at the line when the gun goes off. Starting styles vary but essentially fall into two groups. Boats that get there early to save a good spot, and boats that come in late to steal an early boat’s spot. The early boats are more assured of having a front row spot, but give up speed as they sit there holding it, and the late boats come in with better speed, but may not find a spot to steal. To make it all just a bit more exciting, any boat over the line early, must let all of the other boats pass before the first mark.
Peter Burling, the skipper of the New Zealand boat, has favored the late/fast/stealing strategy in season three, and has had some good starts, but has suffered a bunch behind other boats with no place to go at the start.
New Zealand’s position at mark 1, the first mark after the start, tells us the story. In the first event of Season 3 (Bermuda), New Zealand’s positions at mark 1 were: 9, 8, 8, 2, 8. In the next two events (Chicago and Plymouth) their mark 1 positions were: 1, 7, 6, 7, 8; and 7, 3, 1, 6, 1, 1.
Here is NZL stuck in traffic in Bermuda.
If we consider a mark 1 position of 3rd or better an indication of a good start, the relationships between starting and winning go like this for New Zealand:
Bermuda: 1 of 5 starts were good, result = 6th place for the event. Being the first event of the series, the event place is also the season place. So after Bermuda, New Zealand was in 6th place for the season.
Chicago: 1 of 5 starts were good, result = 4th place for the event. Combining the result from Chicago with that from Bermuda, put New Zealand up one to 5th place for the season.
Plymouth: 3 of 6 starts were good, result = wins the event. This win in Plymouth, moved New Zealand up one more to 4th place for the season.
Clearly, Pete Burling’s ever improving starts in the first three events contributed significantly to New Zealand’s move into 4th place after Plymouth, But New Zealand was just getting warmed up! In Copenhagen for the 4th event, New Zealand’s places at mark 1 were 1, 1, 2, 1. Their finishes were 1, 1, 1, 1, winning the event and moving into 2nd place for the series – which they held for the rest of the season.
Here is NZL nailing it in Copenhagen:
Tune in tomorrow for the story of Great Britain and France fighting over the last spot in the grand final. It has been quite a battle. GBR was ahead for the first half of the season, but since then, FRA has held that third spot after for of the last five events.
Don’t count out Ben Ainslie and his British team. Olympic sailors can only get one medal per Olympics, and Ben has a silver and four golds. Many sailors try several times to win one Olympic medal, he was on the podium in five consecutive Olympics.
Links and Resources
SailGP Event Page (credit for the start screenshots): https://sailgp.com/#l
ESPN Story about Ben Ainslie (credit for the medals photo): http://en.espn.co.uk/espn/sport/story/185760.html
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