By Alexander Smith
(Reuters) – Tom Slingsby and his Australian crew clinched this season’s SailGP Championship in San Francisco Bay on Sunday, notching up their third straight win and with it another $1 million prize.
A dominant Australia held off a last-minute surge from runner-up Peter Burling’s New Zealand in the three-boat final, with Ben Ainslie’s Emirates Great Britain trailing in behind in what has been billed as sailing’s answer to Formula One.
“We got ourselves right back in there at the end, we dug deep, we didn’t give up and we kept fighting, and I’m gutted to not pull it off, but you have to hand it to the Aussies, they are incredible,” Burling said.
SailGP’s third season has seen nine teams, which also included France, Canada, Denmark, the United States, Switzerland and Spain, battle it out in high-speed F50 foiling catamarans, with increased sponsorship and a growing television audience.
“We had the three best teams out there and everyone got to witness an amazing race and I think that’s better for our sport as a whole – we’re going to create new interest, more spectators and fans and that’s a good thing,” Slingsby said.
There will be little downtime for the crews with SailGP’s fourth season due to begin on June 16-17 in Chicago, the first of 12 events around the world which will culminate once again in San Francisco Bay in July next year.
SailGP said that a new team, which it did not name, would be joining the others for the start in the next U.S. event.
Britain’s Ainslie, who had a mixed season and battled with France over the weekend to secure a place in the final, said it “wasn’t quite clicking” for his crew on the day but that they had learned a lot over the season.
(Reporting by Alexander Smith in London; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
