SailGP is back in action this weekend in Portsmouth, England where the country’s south coast continues to enjoy ‘endless summer’ weather.
If there can be such a thing as a favourite in SailGP then Diego Botin’s Spanish Los Gallos are just that, after pulling off back-to-back victories at the two previous events in San Francisco and New York, to top the season standings on the eve of the British event.
Hot on the heels of the Spaniards, however, is Tom Slingsby’s Australian Bonds Flying Roos, who will be looking to scupper the Spanish winning spree in Portsmouth this weekend.
So how closely has the Australian team been studying the Spanish data from the last two events – and what might they have identified that Botin and Co. are doing differently?
According to Slingsby, analysing the data from Los Gallos hadn’t revealed that they were doing anything strange or startling with the way they were sailing their F50.
“I think what we have learned is that they're doing the small things right – and executing well when the pressure's on,” Slingsby told me.
“Winning two events in a row is a lot of pressure. Making two finals in a row is tough enough, but then executing that final race and winning them both, it's not easy. We've done it in the past, but it's not easy to pull off.
“But I honestly haven't seen anything special they're doing. I just think they're executing extremely well. For us as the Australian team, I think we have been making a few uncharacteristic boat handling issues – mistakes that we often don't make. The good thing is that they're easy things to fix up for us, and it's just a matter of better execution from our point of view.”
Nevertheless, the Australian skipper said the team’s constant reviewing of the data from the Spanish and other top performing teams left them somewhat of a quandary over whether to make some changes to the way they sail their boat.
“It is a constant evolution in terms of the way the teams are sailing,” he said. “Historically we have sailed the boat very differently to other teams – just in the playbook and the way people take over control systems at different times during manoeuvres. We went down a different path to the others and it's been successful for us.
“But now there are some things we are seeing that’s making us question whether we should be cutting back to the way the other teams are doing it. It’s hard to know but we have got to make a decision: are we going to start hedging back to the rest a bit, or are we going to just stick with our process and perfect it?
As an example, Slingsby points to the way flight control is managed aboard the Australian boat.
“This isn't anything secretive at all – any SailGP team knows this, but we run the manoeuvres differently, in that I fly the boat a lot of the time. Our flight controller takes one hull and I take the other.
We have always thought we had an advantage in this area, but now the other teams are getting very strong in the way they sail their boats and we’re looking at whether maybe there's a different way we can do it.”
Slingsby comes into the Portsmouth event on the back of a second place at the Moth World Championship on Lake Garda last week. He believes that stepping back into the Moth had ‘really sharpened me up’.
“Going back to small boat sailing has been a great experience. I feel like I am in a really good place right now. I feel extremely sharp. I feel like I'm seeing the wind really well. I feel like my skills are as high as they've been in the last few years. I'm really looking forward to this event and the Moth is a big reason for that.”
Racing at the Emirates Great Britain Sail Grand Prix in Portsmouth starts tomorrow (Saturday July 19) at 1600 local time. Winds are expected to be in the eight to 15 knot range with gusts up to 20 knots. Unfortunately, the forecast calls for a strong chance of rain over the weekend.
