SailGP: New Zealand SailGP Team have worst finish in two years with seventh place in Los Angeles

The New Zealand SailGP Team finished seventh at the series event in Los Angeles. Photo / Felix Diemer / SailGP

SailGP’s debut in Los Angeles has not been one to remember for the New Zealand SailGP team.

After the high of claiming the title at the series opener in Chicago last month, the Kiwi crew settled for seventh place in Los Angeles on a weekend where nothing went their way. It’s the team’s worst finish at an event since July 2021, where they came seventh at the event in Great Britain during their debut campaign.

Coming into the second day of this weekend’s event in Los Angeles, the New Zealand team’s hopes of securing a podium finish hung by a thread.

After a day to forget on Sunday, the Kiwis entered Monday’s action 10 points adrift of a spot in the podium race with just two fleet races in which to make up those points.

It was going to require two clean races sailed at or near the front of the fleet and, for a moment, it looked like they had made the ideal start to the second day’s action.

That lasted about one second, however, as the race umpire piped up to hand the Kiwis a penalty for crossing the starting line early. The Kiwis looked to have timed their run to perfection but getting it slightly wrong meant the team had to fall to the back of the fleet, giving up what would have been a good position to approach the first gate from.

As was the case on day one, trying to get a meaningful result after starting a race at the back of the fleet was close to a lost cause.

“We knew we had to win both races so we were prepared to up our risk a little bit,” grinder Josh Junior said.

“Potentially we just maybe upped it a little bit too much to get the OCS [on course side] penalty, but you’ve got to push and keep trying. We’re here to win.”

It became a matter of hoping for mistakes for the Kiwis in tricky wind conditions at the lower end of the range, but the team quickly saw their hopes of a second podium finish in as many events this season sink.

They were able to move up to finish seventh in the race, but that saw them eliminated from the running for the podium race with one fleet race to sail.

There were plenty of penalties dished out during the final fleet race as several teams pushed to secure their spot in the podium race; Spain twice pulled up for not giving the French enough room, while Canada picked up an early boundary penalty and Switzerland had both a boundary and proximity penalty during the race.

After being pushed out wide from the starting gate, the Kiwis sailed a clean race to end their weekend, moving up through the fleet for a sixth-placed finish in the race and a seventh of the event. They’ll now have two months to dissect it before the series resumes in St Tropez, France, in mid-September.

“It’s a hugely disappointing weekend for us and I think it just shows that the level of the fleet keeps getting better and better and if we don’t improve then we’ll find ourselves at the back,” Junior said.

“It’s definitely brought us back down. We just need to refocus on the basics and come out swinging for the next event.”

Spain claimed their first SailGP event win in Los Angeles, beating Denmark and Australia in the podium race.