Day 1 of the Chicago SailGP saw Phil Robertson bring home Team Canada at the top of the leaderboard.
Nine national teams took to Lake Michigan for its freshwater racing debut this weekend at the inaugural Chicago event on Lake Michigan where the Navy Pier offered fans a fantastic vantage point from which to watch the second event of SailGP Season 3.
Phil Robertson’s Team Canada finished the day with 27 points and a one point advantage over Ben Ainslie’s British team.
Four points off the lead in third place it is Pete Burling and New Zealand, with in fourth Tom Slingsby and Australia.
In the first race Burling led from start to finish with Ainlsie taking second and Nicolai Sehested bringing Denmark home in third.
Robertson brought Canada home in fourth place, a sign of thigs to come . . .
For race 2, Robertson upped his game with a win ahead of Slingsby, the Aussie team holding off the fast approaching British team in third place, with the Danes taking fourth.
In the final race of the day Robertson took the Canadian’s to their second straight win, just five seconds ahead of the British.
Meanwhile Slingsby battled back from a poor start to challenge the Kiwi team at the final mark, and get a penalty on Burling which moved them into third.
They now race two more full fleet races on Sunday with the top three going into the winner-takes-all final race.
Racing starts at 14.00 hrs local time – 20:00 hrs UK time.
Video live from 19:30 hrs UK time
Chicago is the second of 11 confirmed venues (with the Australia Sail Grand Prix – Sydney announced earlier this week) that will form the Season 3 calendar.
Plymouth in the UK is the next stop for SailGP, before the fleet visits Copenhagen, Saint-Tropez, Cádiz, Dubai, Singapore, Sydney, Christchurch and San Francisco.
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