Australian Crew Wins Winner-Take-All, $1 Million SailGP Race After Whale Delay

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — The Australian SailGP team didn’t let an interruption by a wayward whale get in the way Sunday as they easily defended their overall title, claiming the winner-take-all, $1 million season finale race over Japan and the United States on San Francisco Bay.

After gusty breezes caused on-course mayhem in the final two races of the San Francisco stop, the three crews at the top of the season long standings advanced to the final showdown.

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Unfortunately, for skipper Jimmy Spithill and his American crew, their boat was damaged in a preliminary race Sunday in a collision with the Spanish crew.

Photo: Ricardo Pinto for SailGP

In the first attempt at the finale, Australia had a short lead when the sonar on the race officials boat detected a whale heading for the race course.

The race was halted until the migrating whale swam out of the area. During the interruption, the winds ahead of an approaching storm system lightened.

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At the restart, Australia’s Tom Slingsby and his crew judged the fickle winds perfectly, lifting the 50-foot catamaran up on its foils and jumping out to what proved to be an insurmountable lead on the first leg down the 600-meter course.

“If we won in very normal conditions, I don’t know this feels better,” Slingsby said as his crew celebrated. “We knew we had to be ready for anything and we really got anything. We weren’t expecting to be leading a million-dollar race and for it to be cancelled by whales being on the course.”

He credited timing and wind judgment by tactician Nina Curtis and luck with jumping out so quickly on the restart.

“We just got away in the last race and they couldn’t catch us,” he said.

Both Japan and the US floundered at the restart. The Japanese were slowed by a camera boat and the damaged US catamaran simply did not respond. Nathan Outteridge’s Japan team came in second to repeated as season-ending runners up and American came in third.

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The win capped a dramatic week for Slingsby. Three days ago, he capsized his $7 million foiling catamaran, the Flying Roo, at the end of a practice session, causing major damage to the wing sail that took the shore crew two sleepless nights to repair.