SailGP Auckland: Black Foils’ Blair Tuke on latest fleet upgrades and what the data shows

Things have become very interesting for competing teams ahead of SailGP’s debut event in Auckland.

While plenty has been made about the introduction of the new high-speed T-Foils replacing the L-shaped foils on the vessels should conditions permit it this weekend, the range in which teams are coming to terms with the change has seen massive variation.

That was the initial takeaway from Black Foils wing trimmer Blair Tuke, after analysing the data from the first couple of days of practice in Auckland.

While racing will take place on the Waitematā Harbour to the city side of the Harbour Bridge, the teams have been venturing a bit further out for practice, letting loose on the Hauraki Gulf where they have more space to utilise.

In SailGP, all the data from each boat is collected and made accessible to all teams, so everyone can see how everyone else is operating their F50 foiling catamaran.

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The Black Foils during a training session on the Hauraki Gulf this week. Photo / Bob Martin, SailGP

With a new piece of equipment being brought into the fray this week, Tuke told the Herald it had led to some vastly different returns in the data.

“We get full access to that for all teams, which is a great way to help push everyone forward. But, yeah, the scattering of where people had things set yesterday [Tuesday] is still huge, so it’ll be interesting how that sort of funnels in or narrows up as we get closer to the racing.”

In addition to the new equipment, Auckland is expected to present a vastly different challenge to the season five opener in Dubai, which is a light-air venue where the teams spent a lot of the time racing off their foils.

On Monday, the Black Foils took their F50 Amokura out in blustery conditions, getting their first chance to sail as a unit since winning in Dubai.

“Our first day on the water was proper windy; as windy as I’ve sailed on these boats and actually the windiest I’ve been out in on the Hauraki Gulf for a while, so that was awesome,” Tuke said.

“It’s good to have a bit more runway to get the hang of the T-Foils. We probably did more foiling on the way out to the training area the other day with Leo [Takahashi] on the flight control than we did in the whole of Dubai.

“That was an awesome day to get under our belts and another good one today to keep trying to learn these foils and just to gel as a unit, really.”

SailGP will roll out its new high-speed T-Foils across the fleet this weekend in Auckland. Photo / Bob Martin, SailGP

The Black Foils reached a top speed of 97.2kmh during that session — the fastest of any team through both of Monday and Tuesday’s practice sessions — while the Canadian SailGP Team reached speeds of more than 100kmh last year when the T-Foils were still in development.

“Maybe we should have tried to push it a bit harder and we might have clicked over it, but yeah, we weren’t necessarily going for that,” Tuke said of reaching the top speed.

“We’re just trying to learn the foils, but they’re definitely fast. I think some aspects are probably more stable than the old foils. That’s quite nice when you’re going those sorts of speeds; [you] feel like you’ve got a little bit more control.

“As far as learning how to make them go fast or faster than the opposition and how to manoeuvre them well, I think that’s still a big learning curve for everyone, really.”

Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.