January 17, 2025 • 9 mins
Race day in Auckland and New Zealand's Sail GP helmsman Peter Burling has declared his team ready to go.
It's the first event to be held in Auckland and second of the current season, after victory in Dubai.
Burling told Jason Pine that the stage is set.
“There’s big change ups this week with the T4s coming in being a bit more up, the wind range should be a really good equaliser.”
“We're under no illusions we're going to have to perform right at the top of our game if we want to win this weekend.”
Racing starts at 4pm, with three set down for today before finals day tomorrow.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Vine
from News Talk SEDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well, there's really only one person we could start the
show with today, without a doubt. One of the world's
great modern day sailors. Twenty sixteen Olympic champion, three time
Olympic medallist, nine time World champion, three America's Cup winning helmsman,
two time World Male Sailor of the Year, member of
the New Zealand Order of Merit, driver and co CEO
of the New Zealand Black Foils Peter Berling. How are
(00:34):
you feeling about sale gp Auckland. Nice to see you, mate, Hey,
how's it going?
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Good morning now? It looks like an a's aally awesome
day today. You've got a pretty good spot for viewing
here to be honest, in the media center, but yeah,
this is on a north east breeze. Should should fill
in nicely and it's pretty cool seeing all the boats
already half crandon behind us and it's shaping up through
an awesome day.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Absolutely, excitement is high. You come here, of course off
the back of victory in the season opening events in November.
What were you most pleased about in Dubai yeah, we'll do.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Buy for us as obviously this season opener, like any championship,
you obviously want to try and get off to a
good start. We've obviously got a slightly changed lineup since
since last season, and you know, it's really about trying
to build that experience in the new configuration, build that
that comfort level. Obviously completely different conditions and configuration in
Dubai to hear. So now we're really pleased with the
way we went out and build a really solid plan
(01:26):
and executed that in Dubai and we're in the now illusions.
It's big change ups this week with the t Falls
coming in being a bit more up the wind range
should be a really good equalizer, so it's going to
be interesting to see. But it's their best foot forward
here and wanted no illusions. We're going to have to
perform right at the top of that game. We want
to win this weekend.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
You want to talk about the t Falls in a
moment you mentioned the personnel change. Andy Maloney hugely experienced,
he's with the Brazilian team. Now Leo Takahashi has come
in as flight controller. How did you go about getting
him up to speed as quickly as you could without
overloading him with information.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yeah, I think salgp's obviously opened up their nationality rules
now and I think it's really good for the sport
now having that transfer market and sol GP so it
kind of both us seeing the Australians lost a real
experienced person, both bringing new people back in. But yeah,
for us, it's been just you know, trying to upscale Leo.
He's We're really lucky he's actually coming at a really
(02:19):
high level, having done a few seasons with the Japanese
team before they exited the league. But you know, I
think everything's progressed so far and it's all about just
you know, building that comfort level across across the sailing team,
you know, really getting that kind of muscle memory in
terms of you know, understanding what the other person's going
to do at what time. And yeah, I think we'll
just get better and better at a group. So we're
really happy with the base we've got were and no illusions.
(02:39):
We've got a lot of hard work to do over
the week ahead, but you know, really excited send the racing. Today.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Andy Maloney spoke in really glowing terms about you and
Blair Chuk and said, look, it was a tough decision
for him to make, but he he always comes to
you for the big decisions in his life for advice.
Must have been a slightly different one though, and that
he say, Kay, I need some advice. Should I leave
you or not? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
I mean it's sport though, right, and yeah, you kind
of you got to encourage people to do what's best
for them, and that's what we did for any And
he's really excited by taking on this this new opportunity
and you know, to be honest with with them, stepping
into another team gives us a really exciting opportunity for
the Black Foils to bring in a really young, kind
of high performing Kiwi and you know, try and keep
evolving our team as well. So yeah, it's a little
(03:20):
bit painful, some of those decisions a little bit tricky
at the time to figure out a good way through.
You know, I think we're both really happy with what
we've ended up.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Or right, let's talk about the new high speed titanium
t Foils in broad terms. First of all, how are they?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Yeah, it's definitely been a learning experience. It gives you
a whole nother degree of freedom and the way you
can operate the foils with introducing a function we call can't.
It's kind of another way you trom the from the foils,
and uh yeah, also just kind of resets the playing field.
And everyone's got so much experience on the other foils
(03:54):
that you know, this is all kind of everyone starting
from scratch and trying to build up. So yeah, for us,
it's been a really exciting challenge over the last what
is it for four days to to try and pick
that up and excited to try and go see if
you can execute what we've learned on the racecourse today?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Do you reckon or have you got up over one
hundred k?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Now the quick three beings about ninety seven to five
something like that. Yeah, I'm not sure you'll see one
hundred k this weekend, to be honest, doesn't quite look
windy in the forecast. Windy enough in the forecast looks windy,
not windy enough for top top speeds. But yeah, they
are a pretty awesome bit of equipment, and I'm sure
you get people seeing increasing their comfort levels on on
how to use them, how to get the most out
(04:32):
of them. You'll start seeing that speed go uping up.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
As you go faster, and everyone else goes faster. How
much are any mistakes you make, any errors, how much
are they magnified in terms of their consequences when you're
going just that bit quicker.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Oh, anything you do gets its magnified massively, both in
terms of where you put the boat on the racetrack,
you know, being in more pressure than someone else gets
it's made to find massively because your speed change from
that that puff's a lot bigger. But then you also
if you make a mistake on the boat handling or
or just general sailing, that gets magnified as well, just
because you're total speeds at that little bit greater. So yeah,
(05:08):
it's really going to be about, you know, trying to
put the boat in the right part of the racecourse.
But then you also say, look really fast and clean,
So it's you're going to be challenging on this tight racecourse.
Behind us here it's a little bit shiftyen dynamic, not
too crazy, but a little bit shiftyen dynamics are just
enough in it, And yeah, should make for some pretty
awesome racing with eleven btes.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Yeah, and I was going to mention the two extra teams.
Obviously we haven't seen France yet and we look forward
to them rejoining hopefully in Sydney. But even with the leven,
even with ten, it was crowded with twelve. How crowded
is that race course going to be, particularly somebody like
this where it's quite tight anyway.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Yeah, personally, I kind of noticed more of a difference
from like six or seven up to ten than you
know when you have those extra couple in because it's
I mean with ten, it's so crowded anyway, there's so
many boats around, and they tend to just make the
start line that a little bit longer, So yeah, they
give us a little more space gets filled with a
few more boats, and yeah, the start side I don't
(06:02):
seem to find too different, but yeah, it's more around
the course just you know, there's there's so many boats,
so if you don't get off the line, well it's
a bit of a long journey back through. But you
know that's part of SALGP. If you don't get off
the line, you've got to be able to gain those
couple of boats. And generally our finals decided by a
couple of points. Every points pretty critically out there.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
If you don't lead, let's say at the first mark.
How challenging is it to move through the field and
the remainder of the race.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Ah well, I think in general with these boards it's
been you know, what you've seen the last couple days.
It's pretty easy to go backwards all forwards through the fleet,
depending on how well you sail. Yeah, Traditionally, you know,
if you lead at mark one, you should win the race,
but we haven't really been seeing that over the last
couple of days. You know, people have been either sailing
really well through the fleet or going backwards pretty quickly.
So you know, it's really about continuing to put together
(06:45):
a really clean race, continuing to make smart decisions and
saw the boat well and obviously start makes your life
a lot easier in that. But yeah, definitely if you're
back you're u plenty of opportunities.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
And Sir Russell coach has talked in the last few
days about a split fleet format, which I think has
been trialed a fan. They're found of that. I guess
the few are on the racecourse, the better or not.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Yeah, well, I think at some stage you're going to
have to do it. Obviously, the league's scott ambitions to
kind of keep adding our boats to start line, and
you know, if you want to come to really cool
venues like this at in a city, you know, and
these these tight kind of compact racetracks, at some stage
it gets to too many boats, you know, where that
that point is who knows? And you know, if you've
got an odd number of boats, who knows how you're
(07:25):
going to do it as well. So yeah, it's all
stuff that, you know. I think it's great the league's
kind of exploring these options, trialing them. But yeah, for
this weekend we're back to kind of standing configuration, leaving
boats on start line, just like in Dubai and when
it takes all how.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Much did your third place finish at the season four
finale hurt?
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Yeah? I think between second and third doesn't really make
too much difference, to be honest, But you know, we
really tried for the win. You know, we got quite
aggressive on the start line, won the loward end, and
then yeah, kind of ended up not quite quick enough
to hold it down to mark one. And but yeah,
it's really frustrating to not sailor I suppose two hour
expectations and then that final not quite make the best
(08:08):
decisions around the race street, not quite sailors smooth as
we did, and to be honest, we felt a little
bit uncomfortable that whole weekend through San Frian. We never
really got you know, I think as comfortable as particularly
Australians on there that high speed board configuration with the
twenty four meters wing. So yeah, for us, it's definitely
frustrating considering how big a lead we had on the
season leader board going into it. But you know, we'll
learn from it, We'll be act stronger and you know,
(08:30):
looking forward to to trying to give another crack this
season in WW.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
All right, just a couple more for you. So you
had Liam Lawson and the team base yesterday, are you
keen to do a driver swap scheme, get behind a
Formula one wheel and let him drive the year fifty?
Speaker 3 (08:43):
I'm not sure he'd be more nervous, so I'm going
to be more nervous in the car than he would
on the boat. But yeah, I mean, what an awesome
opportunity for young care We looking forward to cheering him
on this season. It's going to be absolutely epic to
see what he can do in an awesome car and yeah,
exciting times.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
And just to finish I know there are fourteen events,
but how special is your home event?
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Home events so special, and you know, especially being at
in New Zealand's bigger city. I mean we've had it
supposed absolutely amazing events down in krish Itch in order
to tarchy the last couple of seasons, but you know,
to change up to aukten now have their debut up
here and you know, right in the downtown of the
city and I think even seeing the helicopter shots with
the city scape in the background, the harbor Bridge and
(09:26):
you know out to the wider Auckland's pretty incredible. This
frace course we've got here and looking forward to putting
on a good show.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Yeah, well everybody's looking forward to to watching the aforementioned
helicopter going overhead at the moment. Peter, thanks for making
yourself available to us on on day one here at
sal GP and Auckland. All the best, mate, We'll all
be cheering.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
For your Thanks each guys, and enjoy the enjoy the show.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
For more from Weekend Sport with Jason Fine, listen live
to News Talks at b weekends from midday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Vine
from News Talk SEDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well, there's really only one person we could start the
show with today, without a doubt. One of the world's
great modern day sailors. Twenty sixteen Olympic champion, three time
Olympic medallist, nine time World champion, three America's Cup winning helmsman,
two time World Male Sailor of the Year, member of
the New Zealand Order of Merit, driver and co CEO
of the New Zealand Black Foils Peter Berling. How are
(00:34):
you feeling about sale gp Auckland. Nice to see you, mate, Hey,
how's it going?
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Good morning now? It looks like an a's aally awesome
day today. You've got a pretty good spot for viewing
here to be honest, in the media center, but yeah,
this is on a north east breeze. Should should fill
in nicely and it's pretty cool seeing all the boats
already half crandon behind us and it's shaping up through
an awesome day.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Absolutely, excitement is high. You come here, of course off
the back of victory in the season opening events in November.
What were you most pleased about in Dubai yeah, we'll do.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Buy for us as obviously this season opener, like any championship,
you obviously want to try and get off to a
good start. We've obviously got a slightly changed lineup since
since last season, and you know, it's really about trying
to build that experience in the new configuration, build that
that comfort level. Obviously completely different conditions and configuration in
Dubai to hear. So now we're really pleased with the
way we went out and build a really solid plan
(01:26):
and executed that in Dubai and we're in the now illusions.
It's big change ups this week with the t Falls
coming in being a bit more up the wind range
should be a really good equalizer, so it's going to
be interesting to see. But it's their best foot forward
here and wanted no illusions. We're going to have to
perform right at the top of that game. We want
to win this weekend.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
You want to talk about the t Falls in a
moment you mentioned the personnel change. Andy Maloney hugely experienced,
he's with the Brazilian team. Now Leo Takahashi has come
in as flight controller. How did you go about getting
him up to speed as quickly as you could without
overloading him with information.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yeah, I think salgp's obviously opened up their nationality rules
now and I think it's really good for the sport
now having that transfer market and sol GP so it
kind of both us seeing the Australians lost a real
experienced person, both bringing new people back in. But yeah,
for us, it's been just you know, trying to upscale Leo.
He's We're really lucky he's actually coming at a really
(02:19):
high level, having done a few seasons with the Japanese
team before they exited the league. But you know, I
think everything's progressed so far and it's all about just
you know, building that comfort level across across the sailing team,
you know, really getting that kind of muscle memory in
terms of you know, understanding what the other person's going
to do at what time. And yeah, I think we'll
just get better and better at a group. So we're
really happy with the base we've got were and no illusions.
(02:39):
We've got a lot of hard work to do over
the week ahead, but you know, really excited send the racing. Today.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Andy Maloney spoke in really glowing terms about you and
Blair Chuk and said, look, it was a tough decision
for him to make, but he he always comes to
you for the big decisions in his life for advice.
Must have been a slightly different one though, and that
he say, Kay, I need some advice. Should I leave
you or not? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
I mean it's sport though, right, and yeah, you kind
of you got to encourage people to do what's best
for them, and that's what we did for any And
he's really excited by taking on this this new opportunity
and you know, to be honest with with them, stepping
into another team gives us a really exciting opportunity for
the Black Foils to bring in a really young, kind
of high performing Kiwi and you know, try and keep
evolving our team as well. So yeah, it's a little
(03:20):
bit painful, some of those decisions a little bit tricky
at the time to figure out a good way through.
You know, I think we're both really happy with what
we've ended up.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Or right, let's talk about the new high speed titanium
t Foils in broad terms. First of all, how are they?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Yeah, it's definitely been a learning experience. It gives you
a whole nother degree of freedom and the way you
can operate the foils with introducing a function we call can't.
It's kind of another way you trom the from the foils,
and uh yeah, also just kind of resets the playing field.
And everyone's got so much experience on the other foils
(03:54):
that you know, this is all kind of everyone starting
from scratch and trying to build up. So yeah, for us,
it's been a really exciting challenge over the last what
is it for four days to to try and pick
that up and excited to try and go see if
you can execute what we've learned on the racecourse today?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Do you reckon or have you got up over one
hundred k?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Now the quick three beings about ninety seven to five
something like that. Yeah, I'm not sure you'll see one
hundred k this weekend, to be honest, doesn't quite look
windy in the forecast. Windy enough in the forecast looks windy,
not windy enough for top top speeds. But yeah, they
are a pretty awesome bit of equipment, and I'm sure
you get people seeing increasing their comfort levels on on
how to use them, how to get the most out
(04:32):
of them. You'll start seeing that speed go uping up.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
As you go faster, and everyone else goes faster. How
much are any mistakes you make, any errors, how much
are they magnified in terms of their consequences when you're
going just that bit quicker.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Oh, anything you do gets its magnified massively, both in
terms of where you put the boat on the racetrack,
you know, being in more pressure than someone else gets
it's made to find massively because your speed change from
that that puff's a lot bigger. But then you also
if you make a mistake on the boat handling or
or just general sailing, that gets magnified as well, just
because you're total speeds at that little bit greater. So yeah,
(05:08):
it's really going to be about, you know, trying to
put the boat in the right part of the racecourse.
But then you also say, look really fast and clean,
So it's you're going to be challenging on this tight racecourse.
Behind us here it's a little bit shiftyen dynamic, not
too crazy, but a little bit shiftyen dynamics are just
enough in it, And yeah, should make for some pretty
awesome racing with eleven btes.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Yeah, and I was going to mention the two extra teams.
Obviously we haven't seen France yet and we look forward
to them rejoining hopefully in Sydney. But even with the leven,
even with ten, it was crowded with twelve. How crowded
is that race course going to be, particularly somebody like
this where it's quite tight anyway.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Yeah, personally, I kind of noticed more of a difference
from like six or seven up to ten than you
know when you have those extra couple in because it's
I mean with ten, it's so crowded anyway, there's so
many boats around, and they tend to just make the
start line that a little bit longer, So yeah, they
give us a little more space gets filled with a
few more boats, and yeah, the start side I don't
(06:02):
seem to find too different, but yeah, it's more around
the course just you know, there's there's so many boats,
so if you don't get off the line, well it's
a bit of a long journey back through. But you
know that's part of SALGP. If you don't get off
the line, you've got to be able to gain those
couple of boats. And generally our finals decided by a
couple of points. Every points pretty critically out there.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
If you don't lead, let's say at the first mark.
How challenging is it to move through the field and
the remainder of the race.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Ah well, I think in general with these boards it's
been you know, what you've seen the last couple days.
It's pretty easy to go backwards all forwards through the fleet,
depending on how well you sail. Yeah, Traditionally, you know,
if you lead at mark one, you should win the race,
but we haven't really been seeing that over the last
couple of days. You know, people have been either sailing
really well through the fleet or going backwards pretty quickly.
So you know, it's really about continuing to put together
(06:45):
a really clean race, continuing to make smart decisions and
saw the boat well and obviously start makes your life
a lot easier in that. But yeah, definitely if you're
back you're u plenty of opportunities.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
And Sir Russell coach has talked in the last few
days about a split fleet format, which I think has
been trialed a fan. They're found of that. I guess
the few are on the racecourse, the better or not.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Yeah, well, I think at some stage you're going to
have to do it. Obviously, the league's scott ambitions to
kind of keep adding our boats to start line, and
you know, if you want to come to really cool
venues like this at in a city, you know, and
these these tight kind of compact racetracks, at some stage
it gets to too many boats, you know, where that
that point is who knows? And you know, if you've
got an odd number of boats, who knows how you're
(07:25):
going to do it as well. So yeah, it's all
stuff that, you know. I think it's great the league's
kind of exploring these options, trialing them. But yeah, for
this weekend we're back to kind of standing configuration, leaving
boats on start line, just like in Dubai and when
it takes all how.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Much did your third place finish at the season four
finale hurt?
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Yeah? I think between second and third doesn't really make
too much difference, to be honest, But you know, we
really tried for the win. You know, we got quite
aggressive on the start line, won the loward end, and
then yeah, kind of ended up not quite quick enough
to hold it down to mark one. And but yeah,
it's really frustrating to not sailor I suppose two hour
expectations and then that final not quite make the best
(08:08):
decisions around the race street, not quite sailors smooth as
we did, and to be honest, we felt a little
bit uncomfortable that whole weekend through San Frian. We never
really got you know, I think as comfortable as particularly
Australians on there that high speed board configuration with the
twenty four meters wing. So yeah, for us, it's definitely
frustrating considering how big a lead we had on the
season leader board going into it. But you know, we'll
learn from it, We'll be act stronger and you know,
(08:30):
looking forward to to trying to give another crack this
season in WW.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
All right, just a couple more for you. So you
had Liam Lawson and the team base yesterday, are you
keen to do a driver swap scheme, get behind a
Formula one wheel and let him drive the year fifty?
Speaker 3 (08:43):
I'm not sure he'd be more nervous, so I'm going
to be more nervous in the car than he would
on the boat. But yeah, I mean, what an awesome
opportunity for young care We looking forward to cheering him
on this season. It's going to be absolutely epic to
see what he can do in an awesome car and yeah,
exciting times.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
And just to finish I know there are fourteen events,
but how special is your home event?
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Home events so special, and you know, especially being at
in New Zealand's bigger city. I mean we've had it
supposed absolutely amazing events down in krish Itch in order
to tarchy the last couple of seasons, but you know,
to change up to aukten now have their debut up
here and you know, right in the downtown of the
city and I think even seeing the helicopter shots with
the city scape in the background, the harbor Bridge and
(09:26):
you know out to the wider Auckland's pretty incredible. This
frace course we've got here and looking forward to putting
on a good show.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Yeah, well everybody's looking forward to to watching the aforementioned
helicopter going overhead at the moment. Peter, thanks for making
yourself available to us on on day one here at
sal GP and Auckland. All the best, mate, We'll all
be cheering.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
For your Thanks each guys, and enjoy the enjoy the show.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
For more from Weekend Sport with Jason Fine, listen live
to News Talks at b weekends from midday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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