Lightning threat calls off SailGP practice – again

No practice racing for the second event running. Normally sailors aren’t that bothered about missing a practice race, especially if it’s chucking down with rain like it has been in Sydney for the past 24 hours. But lost time in SailGP is always painful, whatever the circumstances.

I’ve been on an extended tour of Australasia for more than six weeks now, and this is the first rain I’ve encountered. The past day in Sydney has certainly made up for the lack of rain. It has been chucking it down to the point where parts of the city were seriously flooded last night with many houses and businesses dealing with power cuts.

More importantly for the sailors and their carbon-fibre wing rigs, it’s the threat of lightning in the afternoon – just like Auckland – that put the kibosh on any practice racing. With the same wind direction – easterly – forecast for Friday through to Sunday, it would have been useful time for the strategists to get their eye in on which side of Shark Island to choose. Sydney Harbour is the most unique of race courses and there’s going to be very little time for teams to work out what will be the winning strategy.

More than ever the six sailors on board will be relying on their ‘eyes in the sky’, their two fellow sailors sitting in the coaches booth some 10km away from the race course, near the F50 paddock which is situated further up the Harbour on the other side of the magnificent Sydney Harbour bridge.

As Aussie skipper of Sweden’s Artemis SailGP, Nathan Outteridge, commented: “The wind will be bouncing over Nielsen Park. It'll be bouncing over Shark Island and so it'll be an eyes out of the boat kind of day. Unfortunately the best view in the house is going to basically make our race course really challenging. So those of you who are going out to Shark Island to watch the racing, if you can keep your heads a little lower, it'll let the wind blow through a bit better for us,” he quipped.

Only four teams went out for the briefest of practice sails this morning – USA, Denmark, Canada and Brazil – before the call was made to abandon the session due to the lightning threat. Even if it only lasted a few minutes, the training session will have been useful for Martine Grael’s stand-in sailors to get used to their position on board. Jeremy Wilmot has been seconded from the US team to become Brazil’s wing trimmer for the weekend, and British sailor Richard Mason has been released from the coaches booth to step into the strategist’s role for Sydney.

Today was also going to be the day when Iain ‘Goobs’ Jensen was going to step back on to the Bonds Flying Roos F50 after badly injuring his knee more than a month ago during training in Perth. Skipper Tom Slingsby commented: “Goobs is going to try to sail today. He has been medically cleared to sail. As anyone who has had a knee injury knows, it is always fine until it is not. It is one of those injuries where it is really tough because you lose confidence in your legs. When you are crossing these boats across the trampolines, you really need to have confident footing underneath you.

“Goobs has been passing every test he has been given, which is unbelievable when you consider the injury, and he might be sailing. We are going to go out there and do a couple of laps with him before the practice racing, and we are going to stop and assess. ‘How does it feel? Does he have confidence in his knee?’ Then we will make a call if he does the practice racing. We are just going to take it step by step.”

With the lack of practice racing, Slingsby and the team have a tough call to make on Saturday. However, they do have their super-substitute on standby. “We have got Glenn Ashby on hand; he will be on the chase boat in his gear ready to jump on if needed. I guess we are just so fortunate that we have that ability. Just to know that we have got someone like Glenn Ashby, who retired a couple of years ago but is known as a 'GOAT' in a lot of circles in the wing trimming world, is incredible.”