The Enel Rio Sail Grand Prix resumes Sunday, with three full fleet races before the top three teams from across the weekend take part in the winner-takes-all event final race.
Emirates GBR is currently last, in twelfth place, after a disastrous first day (11, 6, 11, 12) which started with retirement in the first race with a broken board spring, which prevented them from keeping their foil board down.
They returned to complete the three other races but failed to maintain their fighting sixth place in race two, finishing the day with an 11 and 12.
Team Driver Dylan Fletcher reflected on the opening day in Rio:
“We know that’s not our level of performance. We didn’t really get a break today, but SailGP is the highest standard, and you don’t deserve results when you’re not on your A game. We will come out firing tomorrow, have a bit of a reset and push up the leaderboard as much as possible. In SailGP, anything can happen”.
‘Firing’ or not, Emirates GBR with no chance of qualifying for the three-boat $400,000 (£297,000) event final race, will be sailing for ‘damage limitation’.
Local hero Martine Grael, driving the Mubadala Brazil boat, also suffered technical problems and only took part in the two final races (10, 8).
Finally getting to make her home debut, Martine Grael said, “Overall, it was a tough and frustrating start to the day, but once we got going, it was actually really exciting to get into the starts and upwind legs again. But today was also a special moment when we finally joined the racing.”
Everyone will be hoping for a stronger breeze to allow the teams to get some decent racing, and basically save what has been something of a damp-squib so far.
The Enel Rio Sail Grand Prix continues on Guanabara Bay, Sunday 11 April at 7 pm BST – 3 pm Rio time.
