January 18, 2025 • 8 mins
A win in the last race of day one has turned around a poor start by New Zealand to their home SailGP regatta in Auckland.
After a fourth, eighth and sixth, the Peter Burling-helmed crew rebounded to take the fourth and final race of the day.
Australia leads the regatta standings on 34 points from Great Britain and Spain, with New Zealand fourth.
Sailing commentator Steve Morrison joined Piney to unpack what we can expect from day two.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Vine
from news Talk zib.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
It's just gone twelve to twenty six on news talks 'b.
After four races on day one of salgp's Auckland Debu,
Australia tops the table, then immerates Great Britain in Spain,
and after a slow start, the Black Foils recovered to
win the final fleet race of the day to sit
in fourth place.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Let's bring in.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
One of the voices of SALGP double Olympian, former World
champion race commentator Stevie Morrison. Stevie, thanks for joining us.
What were the big storylines for you on day one?
Speaker 4 (00:39):
I think it was just how hard it was getting
off the start line and how maybe the fleet's.
Speaker 5 (00:43):
Evened up a bit with Switzerland.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
You know, they did a great reset halfway through day one,
put in a good performance, and yeah, I don't think
it was really a story, but it was.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
It's always impressive to see how Pete and.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Blair and obviously Live and the rest of the team
managed to manage to deliver when they seem like they're
right got their back against the wall, so they gave
the fans what they wanted in the last race, which
must have been great to be there and was is
always very impressive to see.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, they took their time to get going, didn't they
in the home event, But you're right it was spectacular
when they won race four. How Cay might that be
Stevie hitting into day two. In terms of the momentum
they'll get from.
Speaker 5 (01:17):
It, I think it's got to be massive.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
They always seem to come stronger towards the back end
of the event, and you know they were clearly struggling
with they're start in the first race. I don't know
what they what happened, but they made a massive mistake.
They were really late for the start for themselves on
the back foot, and you know they seem to rely
a bit heavily on these I often refer to them
as Harry Houdini type, you know, magical escapes in races,
and they lean on that. But when they can get
out in front, they're awesome. And it's got to be big,
(01:41):
hasn't it. The momentum Even for those guys, the pressure
have been in front of that huge crowd and the
expectation on them must be must be huge, So to
deliver that it's got to take a little pressure off
and then they're going to go into today ready put
on a show. And they like the big breeze and
it sounds like it's pretty windy down there, which is
which is pretty great from our side.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yes, I can confirm looking out on harbor then, is
absolutely absolutely the case. The Australian teambviously smarting from not
only not winning last season, but and Dubay not even
getting on the podium this time though first sickond and
sick and yesterday so Thom Slingsby's got them back humming again.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
What did they do particularly well for you?
Speaker 4 (02:22):
I think they just seemed quite settled on the foils.
I mean, you know, you've sort of got a straight
you know, Jason Waterhouse and against Leo Takahashi for me,
and Leo's clearly got all the talent in the world,
but he's not had as much time on the tools
as Jason. And despite the fact that they're you know,
they're all getting new to these t foils. I think
that's that's something that Leo's got a big bit of
pressure on him against.
Speaker 5 (02:43):
I think they sailed the boat very solid.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Their maneuvers were better yesterday than the Kiwis, and all
through season four the Kiwis were the standout team maneuver wise.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
So so can you know what will the Kiwis have
learnt overnight?
Speaker 4 (02:54):
And and yeah, can they then match that consistency in
the maneuvers that the Australians had.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
What happened to the US boat yesterday?
Speaker 5 (03:03):
I don't know. I mean it's a big talking point,
isn't it.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
They've done very well at two events, two events where
there's been light winds and there's four on board, and
then when they've had the sort of full crew on board,
they just seem to make errors.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
And whether that's.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
Because they're sort of strategically or tactically a bit behind
the bit, behind the eight ball or q ball as
we'd stay and ask sneper over here in UK and
not seeing the you know, not seeing what's about to come,
or whether it is a is a pure mechanical thing
on board. But they've had a lot of practice over
the winter, so I definitely think season you know is
playing twenty five season, is there no excuse environment for them?
(03:37):
And yeah, they made handling errors. Basically they sailed pretty well,
but they made handling errors. And you get absolutely hammered
when you do that.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
The Italians had, I guess an unhappy start to life
and do bay, but they were a lot bitter yasterday.
What did you make of the Italian chaste today in Auckland?
Speaker 5 (03:53):
Yeah, I was impressed.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
I mean they you know again, they had their they
had their French Kiwi Jason Saunders. I think he went
to the Rio Games for the New Zealand team, didn't
he in the Nacular And so Jason comes with a
lot of experience and I you know, being from Auckland,
that can't that can't be a disadvantage of having that
little bit of local knowledge there. So I think Jason
coming on freed up Carl Langford to have a little
(04:17):
bit more bandwidth. And then you know Riggiero Tita two
Olympic gold medals. I mean, well you say that through
the whole fleet. I mean, what's great about sales GPS.
There's just talent from top to bottom, from the front
of the boat to the back of the boat.
Speaker 5 (04:27):
Everyone's you know, achieved so much.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
So he's maybe almost a bit easy to just say
two Olympic gold medals, But for Ugi, he's going to
have a lot of expectation, Jimmy Spittill staring him down,
and potentially, I guess can always come in and drive
at some stage, although I don't think he wants to,
so I think just that little bit of experience with
Jason Waterhouse meant that they had two of the two
of the back three or back four positions, had a
(04:50):
lot of experience and that made a massive difference.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Huge anticipation about the tfoils and how they would affixed
things yesterday. How did you assist the way the teams
negotiated the extra challenge of the of the high speed
titanium tfoils.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
I was quite impressed. In general.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
I think the course was very short, so we didn't
necessarily see the full potential of it.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
And what we did see was that as I say that,
I didn't think.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
The maneuvers were as good and clearly that the you know,
these high speed foils they take a slightly different bit
of handling. The crews have got more, more options, more
functions to play with on them. Not only can they
move the foils forward and backwards to get higher or
lower in the water, they can also increase the potential
power in the boat with the sideways movement on them,
and there's people if you look at the data, are
(05:32):
using it all very differently. So I was impressed with
how they got on, but I thought the standard that
staffing was down. They weren't judging the acceleration as well
as as we're perhaps used to seeing, and there were
still some errors in the maneuvers.
Speaker 5 (05:44):
But Pete Berling.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
Alluded to at the interview at the end of the
show yesterday it was at the bottom end of the
wind speed for those foils, and today is going to
be right in the sweet spot. So I'm sort of
fingers crossed, touching wood, hopeful maybe that we might see
over one hundred kilometers an hour and you know which
is you know, up in the fifty three fifty four
knots of boat speed range, which is just unbelievable.
Speaker 5 (06:05):
So even boats getting close to that.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Into mark one, I think could be some spectacle.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, remarkable stuff. What what what have you picked up
over watching this over a period of time, Stevie, is
the really important things when it comes to sailing. If
fifties to their optimum capability, I feel like.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
It's a real communication game, you know, I mean, obviously
your your audience there will be well versed in the
in the tales of Pete Berlin Blair Chu. But I
think you know Live McKay in the background, she does
a she does a fantastic job of knitting the coms together,
and it's just that ability to paint in the picture
round a race course and then have that almost telepathic
communication between Pete and Blair. It was obviously Andy last
(06:46):
year and they had those two Americas Cups together, three
America's Cups together, sorry now, so they had that experience
and I just think it is that team ship on
board the boat that allows you to sail the boat
instinctively at a very high level and then react to
the change in dynamic that that a sailing race always
throws your way and you know, the best guys keep
(07:07):
winning and there's a reason for that. And I do
think it's that team experience. You know, the Australian team
is an absolute core. Even the Spanish with with Diego
and Florian who you know who came along to to
sort of take the forty nine a gold last summer.
It's just that same time in the boat and almost
a telepathic teamship that you see with Pete and Blair,
you know the Australian team and the Spanish that swear
(07:29):
the bars so high from those teams.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
All right, Well it's finished with a prediction for today.
I know it's probably fraught with peril. Try to predict anything,
particularly with the wind likely to get up today. Stevie,
what are you what are you thinking? What are you hoping?
What are you predicting for this afternoon?
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Well, I'm relatively confident of predicting the top three, so
I'm going to give you. I'm going to give you Australia,
New Zealand and Great Britain being in that final race.
Speaker 5 (07:53):
And then I think it's whoever gets to mark one first.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
But I feel if anyone's got a slight edge at
the moment, it's the Australians, which your audience is not
going to like to hear.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
But then you know, you don't.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
You don't, you don't back against it, you don't bet
against the black for I mean, Pete, Pete in a
three boat final is exceptional at the starting Pete in
the eleven boats set up at the moment, I would
you know, I feel that's that's the sort of area
where they can improve which is worrying.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
For the rest of the fleet.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
All right, Absolutely loving the coverage, Stevie.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
We'll look forward to hearing more of your voice on
the coverage this afternoon. But thank you so much for
joining us across New Zealand to give us your insight.
Speaker 5 (08:29):
I really appreciate your time. Take care and hope it's
a great show.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
For more from Weekend Sport with Jason Fine, listen live
to news talks it'd be weekends from midday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Vine
from news Talk zib.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
It's just gone twelve to twenty six on news talks 'b.
After four races on day one of salgp's Auckland Debu,
Australia tops the table, then immerates Great Britain in Spain,
and after a slow start, the Black Foils recovered to
win the final fleet race of the day to sit
in fourth place.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Let's bring in.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
One of the voices of SALGP double Olympian, former World
champion race commentator Stevie Morrison. Stevie, thanks for joining us.
What were the big storylines for you on day one?
Speaker 4 (00:39):
I think it was just how hard it was getting
off the start line and how maybe the fleet's.
Speaker 5 (00:43):
Evened up a bit with Switzerland.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
You know, they did a great reset halfway through day one,
put in a good performance, and yeah, I don't think
it was really a story, but it was.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
It's always impressive to see how Pete and.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Blair and obviously Live and the rest of the team
managed to manage to deliver when they seem like they're
right got their back against the wall, so they gave
the fans what they wanted in the last race, which
must have been great to be there and was is
always very impressive to see.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, they took their time to get going, didn't they
in the home event, But you're right it was spectacular
when they won race four. How Cay might that be
Stevie hitting into day two. In terms of the momentum
they'll get from.
Speaker 5 (01:17):
It, I think it's got to be massive.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
They always seem to come stronger towards the back end
of the event, and you know they were clearly struggling
with they're start in the first race. I don't know
what they what happened, but they made a massive mistake.
They were really late for the start for themselves on
the back foot, and you know they seem to rely
a bit heavily on these I often refer to them
as Harry Houdini type, you know, magical escapes in races,
and they lean on that. But when they can get
out in front, they're awesome. And it's got to be big,
(01:41):
hasn't it. The momentum Even for those guys, the pressure
have been in front of that huge crowd and the
expectation on them must be must be huge, So to
deliver that it's got to take a little pressure off
and then they're going to go into today ready put
on a show. And they like the big breeze and
it sounds like it's pretty windy down there, which is
which is pretty great from our side.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yes, I can confirm looking out on harbor then, is
absolutely absolutely the case. The Australian teambviously smarting from not
only not winning last season, but and Dubay not even
getting on the podium this time though first sickond and
sick and yesterday so Thom Slingsby's got them back humming again.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
What did they do particularly well for you?
Speaker 4 (02:22):
I think they just seemed quite settled on the foils.
I mean, you know, you've sort of got a straight
you know, Jason Waterhouse and against Leo Takahashi for me,
and Leo's clearly got all the talent in the world,
but he's not had as much time on the tools
as Jason. And despite the fact that they're you know,
they're all getting new to these t foils. I think
that's that's something that Leo's got a big bit of
pressure on him against.
Speaker 5 (02:43):
I think they sailed the boat very solid.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Their maneuvers were better yesterday than the Kiwis, and all
through season four the Kiwis were the standout team maneuver wise.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
So so can you know what will the Kiwis have
learnt overnight?
Speaker 4 (02:54):
And and yeah, can they then match that consistency in
the maneuvers that the Australians had.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
What happened to the US boat yesterday?
Speaker 5 (03:03):
I don't know. I mean it's a big talking point,
isn't it.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
They've done very well at two events, two events where
there's been light winds and there's four on board, and
then when they've had the sort of full crew on board,
they just seem to make errors.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
And whether that's.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
Because they're sort of strategically or tactically a bit behind
the bit, behind the eight ball or q ball as
we'd stay and ask sneper over here in UK and
not seeing the you know, not seeing what's about to come,
or whether it is a is a pure mechanical thing
on board. But they've had a lot of practice over
the winter, so I definitely think season you know is
playing twenty five season, is there no excuse environment for them?
(03:37):
And yeah, they made handling errors. Basically they sailed pretty well,
but they made handling errors. And you get absolutely hammered
when you do that.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
The Italians had, I guess an unhappy start to life
and do bay, but they were a lot bitter yasterday.
What did you make of the Italian chaste today in Auckland?
Speaker 5 (03:53):
Yeah, I was impressed.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
I mean they you know again, they had their they
had their French Kiwi Jason Saunders. I think he went
to the Rio Games for the New Zealand team, didn't
he in the Nacular And so Jason comes with a
lot of experience and I you know, being from Auckland,
that can't that can't be a disadvantage of having that
little bit of local knowledge there. So I think Jason
coming on freed up Carl Langford to have a little
(04:17):
bit more bandwidth. And then you know Riggiero Tita two
Olympic gold medals. I mean, well you say that through
the whole fleet. I mean, what's great about sales GPS.
There's just talent from top to bottom, from the front
of the boat to the back of the boat.
Speaker 5 (04:27):
Everyone's you know, achieved so much.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
So he's maybe almost a bit easy to just say
two Olympic gold medals, But for Ugi, he's going to
have a lot of expectation, Jimmy Spittill staring him down,
and potentially, I guess can always come in and drive
at some stage, although I don't think he wants to,
so I think just that little bit of experience with
Jason Waterhouse meant that they had two of the two
of the back three or back four positions, had a
(04:50):
lot of experience and that made a massive difference.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Huge anticipation about the tfoils and how they would affixed
things yesterday. How did you assist the way the teams
negotiated the extra challenge of the of the high speed
titanium tfoils.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
I was quite impressed. In general.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
I think the course was very short, so we didn't
necessarily see the full potential of it.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
And what we did see was that as I say that,
I didn't think.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
The maneuvers were as good and clearly that the you know,
these high speed foils they take a slightly different bit
of handling. The crews have got more, more options, more
functions to play with on them. Not only can they
move the foils forward and backwards to get higher or
lower in the water, they can also increase the potential
power in the boat with the sideways movement on them,
and there's people if you look at the data, are
(05:32):
using it all very differently. So I was impressed with
how they got on, but I thought the standard that
staffing was down. They weren't judging the acceleration as well
as as we're perhaps used to seeing, and there were
still some errors in the maneuvers.
Speaker 5 (05:44):
But Pete Berling.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
Alluded to at the interview at the end of the
show yesterday it was at the bottom end of the
wind speed for those foils, and today is going to
be right in the sweet spot. So I'm sort of
fingers crossed, touching wood, hopeful maybe that we might see
over one hundred kilometers an hour and you know which
is you know, up in the fifty three fifty four
knots of boat speed range, which is just unbelievable.
Speaker 5 (06:05):
So even boats getting close to that.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Into mark one, I think could be some spectacle.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, remarkable stuff. What what what have you picked up
over watching this over a period of time, Stevie, is
the really important things when it comes to sailing. If
fifties to their optimum capability, I feel like.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
It's a real communication game, you know, I mean, obviously
your your audience there will be well versed in the
in the tales of Pete Berlin Blair Chu. But I
think you know Live McKay in the background, she does
a she does a fantastic job of knitting the coms together,
and it's just that ability to paint in the picture
round a race course and then have that almost telepathic
communication between Pete and Blair. It was obviously Andy last
(06:46):
year and they had those two Americas Cups together, three
America's Cups together, sorry now, so they had that experience
and I just think it is that team ship on
board the boat that allows you to sail the boat
instinctively at a very high level and then react to
the change in dynamic that that a sailing race always
throws your way and you know, the best guys keep
(07:07):
winning and there's a reason for that. And I do
think it's that team experience. You know, the Australian team
is an absolute core. Even the Spanish with with Diego
and Florian who you know who came along to to
sort of take the forty nine a gold last summer.
It's just that same time in the boat and almost
a telepathic teamship that you see with Pete and Blair,
you know the Australian team and the Spanish that swear
(07:29):
the bars so high from those teams.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
All right, Well it's finished with a prediction for today.
I know it's probably fraught with peril. Try to predict anything,
particularly with the wind likely to get up today. Stevie,
what are you what are you thinking? What are you hoping?
What are you predicting for this afternoon?
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Well, I'm relatively confident of predicting the top three, so
I'm going to give you. I'm going to give you Australia,
New Zealand and Great Britain being in that final race.
Speaker 5 (07:53):
And then I think it's whoever gets to mark one first.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
But I feel if anyone's got a slight edge at
the moment, it's the Australians, which your audience is not
going to like to hear.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
But then you know, you don't.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
You don't, you don't back against it, you don't bet
against the black for I mean, Pete, Pete in a
three boat final is exceptional at the starting Pete in
the eleven boats set up at the moment, I would
you know, I feel that's that's the sort of area
where they can improve which is worrying.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
For the rest of the fleet.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
All right, Absolutely loving the coverage, Stevie.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
We'll look forward to hearing more of your voice on
the coverage this afternoon. But thank you so much for
joining us across New Zealand to give us your insight.
Speaker 5 (08:29):
I really appreciate your time. Take care and hope it's
a great show.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
For more from Weekend Sport with Jason Fine, listen live
to news talks it'd be weekends from midday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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