Black Foils and Los Gallos seek Auckland retribution

The Black Foils have been in a dark mood about that penalty in Perth, and ‘Los Gallos’ have been seeing red over their lack of compensation points for a broken boat during training in Perth.

While neither Burling nor Botín can afford to spend too much time looking back at the perceived injustices from the first event of the season in Western Australia almost a month ago, they can turn that anger to their advantage in Auckland this weekend.

The official SailGP forecast shows the wind will be firing bullets from a south-south-westerly direction. With the wind blowing off the city at such a velocity, one of the few predictable things about this weekend’s conditions is just how fierce and unpredictable the wind is likely to be. 

Even last year when the wind was blowing parallel to the city’s waterfront, which enabled the race course to be lengthened, sailors were listing Auckland as one of the toughest challenges of 2025. So with the prevailing wind blowing out of the city, principal race officer Iain Murray and his team will be working with very little race space indeed. High-speed congestion is in the offing.

Even as I write this on Wednesday, the teams were not sure whether they’d be launching out of one start line with 13 F50s jostling for position; or if there would be the mathematically awkward but much less congested option of sending the fleet out in two flights, one of seven, one of six.

Either way, Pete Burling and his team of local heroes will be looking to come out firing on all cylinders in front of a full-capacity stadium of New Zealand fans. This is the most sailing-literate nation in the world, and one of the most proudly partisan. If any team is capable of benefiting from a Fan Boost, it’s the Black Foils.

Meanwhile Florian Trittel, Spain’s wing trimmer, has been making no secret of just how unjustly they feel treated for coming away from Perth with no points on the board, the same as New Zealand. Speaking to SailGP commentators Lisa Darmanin and Stevie Morrison, Trittel said: “We understand the rules but there’s one that doesn’t really feel right to us. You compare our situation with the Kiwi situation and by saying that, I mean that obviously I'm not saying that the Kiwis were in the right or in the wrong, but they were judged to be in the wrong about provoking a big incident.

“They are on the same points as we are right now, who haven't even sailed and it was not our fault to not be able to race. The feeling we have now is that maybe there's something we can work on and we can adjust on the rules side of things,” said Trittel, being as diplomatic as possible about a situation that clearly rankles.

While Emirates GBR were a cut above the rest in Perth, showing an extra click of boatspeed whenever they had clear space on the race track, I think we can expect strong performances from New Zealand and Spain this weekend. They have a lot to prove. Never discount Australia and France in high-wind contests, and then – as my co-podcaster Freddie Carr points out – Artemis SailGP have an advantage that no other team can replicate.

While time on the F50 comes in very short supply in SailGP, the next best thing is training on a high-speed foiler that’s almost as quick and just as nimble. Emirates Team New Zealand has been hard at it on Auckland waters, putting its AC40s through their paces. With Nathan Outteridge, Chris Draper and Andy Maloney all doing time together in ETNZ-land, this can only help them as they jump on board the Swedish F50 this Friday.

Unlike Perth where there were four practice days before the race weekend, for Auckland the teams are back to the usual Friday-only scenario. The teams have learned the hard way that you can’t earn season points on a practice day, but you can certainly have them taken away. We saw that on a particularly expensive Friday last year in Sydney, when the US team capsized on the way out to the start and a port/starboard collision resulted in penalty points against both parties - Germany and Brazil. So if there’s ever a day to keep that in mind, it’s this coming Friday the 13th.

The first day of racing proper is Valentine’s Day, but expect no love on the water. Not even a ‘love tap’, the light peck of a touch between boats so favoured by old-school match racing skippers in keelboats. In high-speed foilers like F50s, rule number one of the weekend is to avoid any kind of contact between boats. It’s just too risky and too expensive.

After the high-speed excitement of Perth a month ago, I wondered if we’d already seen the pinnacle of the season. But with this venue and this saucy weather forecast, Auckland has all the ingredients to be even more thrilling than that extraordinary season opener.