Flying Roos open their account in Halifax with perfect score

Almost glassy calm greeted the fleet on the water in Halifax today. Strong winds earlier in the forecast had prompted Race Management to split the fleet for the weekend, with racing run in two groups to ease the congestion of all 13 boats sharing one tight course:

Group A: Australia, Spain, France, Denmark, Canada, Brazil and New Zealand
Group B: Great Britain, USA, Sweden, Germany, Italy and Switzerland

The intended schedule was six races on Saturday, three per group, followed by five on Sunday: two per group plus the four-boat final.

But the wind had other ideas. It dropped right off, and what followed was slow-speed racing for day one of the Canada Sail Grand Prix – a day of reading fickle breeze, picking shifts and scrapping for every knot of boat speed.

Group A's afternoon opened with a drifting start in fading breeze. Brazil's new driver Paul Goodison nailed the line, but it was the Flying Roos who rounded mark one out in front with Brazil second and France third.

Tom Slingsby played the long game, breaking clear for what looked a comfortable win ahead of Brazil and a distant Rockwool Denmark. But then the gut-punch: with the nine-minute race time limit, the Roos missed it by just a few seconds. Race abandoned, with no points awarded. “It's frustrating to finish a race and then get told it's abandoned,” Slingsby said afterwards.

For the rerun, the boats went out with just four crew onto a reconfigured course. The Roos arrived early at the line and had to scrub off speed by sailing up, handing the Black Foils a strong start at the favoured bottom end. Yet somehow Slingsby threaded the needle, leading round mark one anyway, with the Black Foils second and Los Gallos third.

Rockwool Denmark briefly got foiling at the very back, made a tidy gain, then dropped off the foils again. With the race cut from five legs to three, the Black Foils split from Australia at the final mark and nosed ahead, only for Slingsby to find his magic speed button, get foiling, and break clear for a comfortable win. Spain held on for second, the returning Black Foils third on their comeback after nearly four months out following the Auckland collision.

Brazil's Goodison dived through at the final stretch to fourth, just ahead of France, with Canada sixth and Rockwool Denmark seventh – the bottom two missing out on points, with only the top five teams scoring.

Race A1
1 Australia
2 Spain
3 New Zealand
4 Brazil
5 France
6 Canada
7 Denmark

For a second it looked like the USA were going to chase a runaway win. Taylor Canfield's crew nailed the start, drove over the top of the fleet and led round mark one ahead of Emirates GBR and Germany.

Then the breeze, gusting past 20km/h one minute and softening the next, turned the race on its head. The front-runners dropped off their foils while Explora Swiss kept their F50 foiling, slicing past into a commanding lead by gate three.

Behind them the leaderboard was shaken up. Nathan Outteridge rode the same right-hand shift that paid for the Swiss, flying Artemis through both the USA and GBR into second.

Sébastien Schneider's Swiss took the win by a clean margin, Outteridge's Artemis second, Germany third. Meanwhile, the Americans tumbled to fifth as the clock ran out and positions were scored at gate four.

Race B1
1 Switzerland
2 Sweden
3 Germany
4 Italy
5 United States
6 Great Britain

Group A returned with the breeze still on the wane, and the advantage sat at the top of the line. Mubadala Brazil, Rockwool Denmark and France all worked that end, and while Brazil crossed first, it was Rockwool – dead last a race earlier – who got a single hull flying to lead round mark one, Brazil second and France third.

The Roos, meanwhile, took a heavy early loss but refused to throw it away, biding their time down at the bottom while Los Gallos managed to muscle into the lead by the third leg. Then the payoff: Australia found a lane that let them sail almost straight up to the gate, weaving back to the front in a scrappy comeback. They took the win by three seconds from the hard-charging Black Foils, France in third, and Spain fourth. Canada came foiling into the line to grab fifth ahead of Denmark and Brazil.

With the wind fading, the schedule was trimmed to two races per group, closing the day for Group A, with Group B left one more to go.

Race A2
1 Australia
2 New Zealand
3 France
4 Spain
5 Canada
6 Denmark
7 Brazil

Nathan Outteridge nailed the start for Artemis, holding the fleet back at the top of the line and accelerating over the top to lead at mark one, Emirates GBR tucked in behind and the USA third before quickly sliding to the back.

As the two front-runners broke clear of the pack, Sweden briefly pressed for the foils down leg three, then backed off, sitting in H1 mode and matching the Brits rather than burning distance chasing lift.

At gate three they split, both popped onto the foils down leg four, and it looked to pay for Sweden as they streaked away. But GBR kept their boat flying while Artemis dropped to H1, Fletcher swinging wide to carry speed and arriving into the final stretch at nearly double the pace. With a tense drag race to the finish line, Artemis managed to hold on by a single second to take the win.

Outteridge put it down to reading a tricky, ever-changing course. “The conditions are very variable – there's been lots of rain cells around all over the place,” he said, “really trying to work out if you need to foil or not.” The split-fleet format, he reckoned, actually suited them: “There's a little bit more fresh air for it, so we enjoyed that.” For a team whose season has been a tale of strong pace undone by poor starts, it clearly mattered. “We're right in the mix and we're just not sort of converting it when it counts,” he admitted, “so hopefully today's the day.”

Switzerland came third, almost a minute behind the leaders, while the US team finished dead last, a poor opening day for the Americans.

Race B2
1 Sweden
2 Great Britain
3 Switzerland
4 Germany
5 Italy
6 United States

So, after four races, it's the Flying Roos and Black Foils who top Group A, with Artemis and Explora Swiss leading Group B. With only a handful of races left tomorrow, the chasing teams have plenty to do to force their way into the four-boat final.

Slingsby, despite the cruelty of that opening race, was understanding about the headache the conditions handed the officials. “There's so many changing things – the start marks are moving during the race, the marks you're heading to that you're pointing straight at are moving,” he said. “The wind was all over the shop, the race committee was scrambling to get fair courses in… I understand why it happened. It's just unfortunate the weather gods didn't play ball.”

Tune in tomorrow to see how the rest of the Canada Sail Grand Prix unfolds. Fingers crossed we get a bit more wind.

Canada Sail Grand Prix standings at the end of Day 1
Group A
1 Australia 10
2 New Zealand 7
3 Spain 6
4 France 4
5 Brazil 2
6 Canada 1
7 Denmark 0

Group B
1 Sweden 9
2 Switzerland 8
3 Germany 5
4 Great Britain 4
5 Italy 3
6 United States 1