Peter Burling and the New Zealand team battled back from a four point pre-event penalty to claim a clear victory at the Singapore Sail Grand Prix.
The Kiwis left Nicolai Sehested’s Denmark and Tom Slingsby’s Australia trailing in their wake with a 100% fly time, an average speed of 53 km/h and top speed of 77.1 km/h.
Sebastien Schneiter’s Swiss team won the first race of day 2 and followed it with a second place to finish fourth overall, missing the Final by two points.
Denmark then won the final fleet race to go through to the Final with New Zealand and Australia.
Ben Ainslie and the Great Britain Team failed to make any impression in the two final fleet races, finishing fifth in both and fifth overall to miss out on the three-boat final.
But Ainlsie did take something from the event . . . Their overall fifth place in Singapore moves them ahead of France and into the top three on the Series 3 leaderboard with 54 points, while France drop down to fourth.
Overall Slingsby’s Australia retain their first place position with 68 points, while Burling and New Zealand close the gap with 59 points in second.
Following Singapore the nine-strong fleet will now move to the KPMG Australia Sail Grand Prix on 18-19 February, before heading onto Christchurch for its highly anticipated inaugural event in New Zealand.
Following New Zealand, the league will return to San Francisco to decide the overall Season 3 championship winner with the winner-takes-all Grand Final on 6 to 8 May.
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