BONDS Flying Roos driver Tom Slingsby has dissected the fast and furious opening day of Portsmouth, which saw the Aussies ‘battling away’ in the pack.
Slingsby’s squad had an uncharacteristically slow start, recording a 7-5-5 race record in the first three fleet races as they struggled to move through the fleet.
“In the first three races, it felt like you needed a sword and shield out there,” Slingsby said after racing. “It was all on, battling away in the middle of the pack.”
But the team managed to ‘save face’ in the fourth and final race of the day, executing a blistering start and holding off home favorites Emirates GBR to claim the win.
Key to the victory was ‘getting away clean’, Slingsby said, as well as ‘doing a number on the Spanish at the bottom mark’.
“I felt a bit bad for that, but I wasn’t going to get forced back into the pack again,” he said. “I wanted to stay ahead and clear it.”
Reflecting on the day, Slingsby noted a lack of passing lanes and implored the Race Committee to ‘open up the course’. “It just made it very touch and go at times,” he said. “We were very condensed and it was a bottleneck at the first mark - fortunately there were no big crashes.”
The Aussies’ race win proved crucial for the team’s day one results, catapulting them up the leaderboard into third place, tied on 26 points with New Zealand.
The Emirates Great Britain Sail Grand Prix | Portsmouth continued tomorrow, July 20, with racing from 4pm BST. Full broadcast information and How to Watch details are HERE.
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