A full Friday of practice in Halifax

Training is a bit of a rarity in SailGP, so it was particularly nice to watch a full fleet take to the waters of Halifax Harbour prior to the weekend’s racing.

Crucially, that included Italy, USA and Brazil who were involved in the three boat crash in New York last time out. A broken jib halyard lock on the USA boat aside, SailGP delivered fully working boats for the teams who required significant repairs to be race ready.

Kudos to SailGP Technologies for the turn around.

The tight course in the lee of the Halifax skyline offered challenging conditions. A small start box, close to the pier meant foiling into the start was almost impossible. This meant nervy, non-foiling starts before the race to mark one.

So who was looking good?

Watching on from the Adrenaline Lounge, Andy Rice and I observed the Black Foils to be impressively fast out the blocks. They led to mark one in race one with aggressively fast windward heel over the rest of the fleet and lodged a second place in race two. All after being out the game since Auckland – it was like no time had passed since.

Saturday’s racing looks to bring equally punchy conditions. The breeze forecast is slightly further right, meaning even more unpredictable wind and a shorter course. The further right wind may well mean a larger start box that could host a full fleet of 13.

The decision of split fleets or a full fleet is yet to be decided. Either way, we’re in for a treat in Canada.