Slingsby steers the Aussies to the front in SailGP’s Season 4 opener in Chicago

By BERNIE WILSON
AP Sports Writer

SailGP’s fourth season started the way the first three ended, with Tom Slingsby skippering Team Australia to the front of the fleet.

Slingsby won two of three fleet races Friday in the Rolex United States Sail Grand Prix Chicago and rebounded from an embarrassing error at the start of the second race to take a 26-25 lead over trans-Tasman Sea rival Peter Burling of New Zealand. Phil Robertson has Canada in third with 24 points and Nicolai Sehested steered Denmark into fourth with 21 in the fleet of identical 50-foot foiling catamarans.

After two more fleet races off Navy Pier on Saturday, the top three boats will advance to the Grand Final in the first of 12 regattas.

“It feels amazing. We sailed really well today,” said Slingsby, an Olympic gold medalist and former America’s Cup champion. “It feels like we sort of took off where we left off in Season 3. A lot of confidence, everyone was having a great time, we were all laughing and joking and it was great to to get a good day on the board.”

The Kiwis went 4-2-2. Slingsby beat Burling in a drag race to the finish line of race three, just like he did in the Grand Final of Season 3 in San Francisco in early May, the third straight time the Aussies claimed the $1 million, winner-take-all championship of tech titan Larry Ellison’s global league.

Slingsby committed an unfathomable error when he missed the starting line in the second race after misjudging his approach. Still, he and his crew full of America’s Cup and Olympic veterans rebounded by sailing through the fleet to finish fifth.

“I personally had a shocker in that one. I just got a bit chicken-winged up,” Slinsby said. “We were trying to kill time before the start. And I wasn’t able to kill the time well.” In danger of hitting the mark, Slingsby bailed out and had to circle back as the rest of catamarans sped away.

“It was a very beginner’s error, but it was good for us,” said Slingsby, who will helm the New York Yacht Club’s American Magic in the 2024 America’s Cup. “In two of the races we had great starts and sailed out in front of the fleet and it was nice to have a race where we were in the pack and having to battle through the pack. That’s really good practice for us.”

Jimmy Spithill, a two-time America’s Cup winner, and his Team USA were a disappointing ninth.

Chicago is the first of four U.S. regattas this season.

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