Auckland: SailGP will split the number of boats racing in Auckland in half today following a horror crash on Saturday which ended in the hospitalisation of two sailors.
The collision between New Zealand and France occurred just after the starting line of the third race on Saturday. Racing was abandoned shortly after and both sailors remain in hospital.
The injured sailors were identified by the teams late on Saturday night. New Zealand’s grinder, Louis Sinclair, suffered compound fractures to both legs. A compound fracture occurs when the bone pierces through the skin.
While France’s Manon Audient was inside the cockpit when she was violently thrown forward on impact, breaking the catamaran’s steering wheel. She was taken in an ambulance to Auckland Hospital and is being kept under observation while awaiting results to rule out a major abdominal injury.
Louis Sinclair from Team New Zealand and Manon Audient from Team France were both injured on Saturday’s collision. Credit: SailGP
Racing will continue on day two but will be the first time the race fleet is split into two groups of six, which SailGP has said will mitigate further collisions caused by congestion on a tight course in Auckland. The catamarans had reached speeds up to 88 km/h on day one.
The fleet was expanded to 13 F50 catamarans this season but repairs to the Spanish boat in the season opener in Perth last month saw just 12 racing. Day one in Auckland was the first time all 13 had raced at the same time.
France’s driver Quentin Delapierre said the addition of another yacht crowding the startline line may have been one contributing factor in the collision.
“It’s probably part of the equation, but it’s way more complicated than this, so I don’t want to say too much,” he said.
SailGP announced the split fleet on Sunday morning, writing: “The decision has been taken with stronger wind conditions forecast for Sunday – on the tight, stadium-style racetrack. Following Saturday’s on-water incident involving New Zealand and France, 11 F50s will compete on Sunday.”
“The format is designed to support competitive racing on a tight course, while maintaining SailGP’s high-performance standards and broadcast delivery. Splitting the fleet reduces congestion at certain places in the course, especially at the bottom mark.”
Footage of the French catamaran colliding with the New Zealand boat.Credit: SailGP
There are plans in place to make a split fleet permanent once a 14th catamaran is added next year.
“We want to expand to 20 teams,” SailGP founder and chief executive Russell Coutts said on Friday. “Next year, team 14 will enter the game and that [team’s] already been sold. So we’ll go to a split fleet of seven and seven and the top four teams will then go through to the final of each event.”
Australia will race in group B on Sunday, based on standings from day one. France and New Zealand were sorted into Group A but neither will race due to the substantial damage caused by the collision. The top three teams of each group will ascend to a winner-takes-all final.
Australian driver Tom Slingsby said the crash on Saturday was the worst he’d seen in the six seasons of SailGP. Still, on Sunday morning felt Australia was disadvantaged by the fleet split.
“It is what it is,” he said during an interview with social media. “The way the fleets were split unfortunately, the way the points work… New Zealand and France get included in the split, and it might bias the fleet a bit. It looks like we’ve got a pretty stacked fleet, I’ve got to say. And in the other fleet, the two top teams being New Zealand and France are unable to race so that fleet has got a nice position.
“But that’s alright, if you want to win you’ve got to beat the best teams. So we’ve just got to take that on.”
Australia enter day two in second place after winning the first of the two completed races on Saturday.
This masthead travelled to Auckland as a guest of SailGP.
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