“It’s been a big work on for us. To be honest, we’ve always believed we can be good at starting and we want to be known as the best starters, but the execution has been a bit challenging,” Black Foils strategist Liv Mackay told the Herald.
“It was nice to come away with three good ones today, but it’s always the biggest challenge in such a good fleet.
“We’ll take today and really take it as a positive, but tomorrow will look completely different so we really just want to keep our heads down and keep working towards that.”
The Kiwis led with 31 points, three ahead of Canada in second, with Australia a point further back - a strong result for Tom Slingsby’s crew given they struggled in race one after appearing to get seaweed tangled on one of their foils.
Mackay kelp on the course was a constant variable teams had to factor in while on the water.
“The kelp here has always been a big issue, but pre-racing the safety committees actually go around and do a kelp sweep. It’s definitely a big issue so we’re checking it between races and really trying to spot it and avoid it out on the course,” Mackay said.
“Fortunately for us we didn’t have any major issues, but I do know that some teams really suffered with it, so we’ll be keeping an eye out for it tomorrow.”
The Kiwis got off to a perfect start in race one, hitting the line at pace as the race proper began and pulling the trigger to shoot ahead of the fleet. They found the room to cut across the front from their wide position to lead at the opening gate.
From there, it became a matter of execution as they led the fleet from start to finish, fighting off a strong challenge from the Spanish to win the day’s opener.
It was the same story in race two; the Black Foils taking the same approach in the pre-start to launch out wide and hold their nerve to get over the top of the rest of the fleet to lead at the first mark.
As the rest of the fleet squabbled for positions around that mark – a line four-wide directly behind the Black Foils – the Kiwis got the early advantage and nothing changed for them in the eight-leg race.
Race three was a blip in their performance on the day, getting their timing wrong at the start and having to drop to the back of the fleet after crossing the line early.
They were able to make up a couple of places during the race. Finishing ninth certainly was not the worst-case scenario.
The Kiwis brushed that race off quickly and again led at the first marker in the day’s final race.
The French team were able to edge in front of them on the second leg, and Quentin Delapierre’s crew held off the Kiwis for the rest of the race.
While the Black Foils soared, it was a different story for Denmark, whose day was brought to a halt in the first race. The team reportedly ran into a marker early in the contest and parked up.
They were ruled out of the rest of the day’s racing.
Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.
