SailGP: Great Britain deliver positive start in Bermuda

Great Britain SailGP Team helmed by Ben Ainslie (Image credit: Ricardo Pinto for SailGP)

Great Britain’s SailGP Team secured second place and nine Championship points at the Bermuda Sail Grand Prix.

The two days of racing marked the first event of Season 3 of SailGP, with the season featuring more events and teams than ever before.

Sir Ben Ainslie continues to lead the British outfit, as both the team's CEO and helmsman. Heading into the opening event, he highlighted their need to focus on consistency and better evaluate the risks and rewards.

In Bermuda, following fifth and fourth-place finishes in the first two races on day two, the British team qualified for the final podium race alongside Australia and Canada.

An error during the pre-start gave Ainslie and the team a lot to do.

Although they were able to achieve 100 per cent of flight time, and claw a place back against Canada, Tom Slingsby's Australian F50 crossed the line first to secure maximum points.

The SailGP F50 catamaran fleet in Bermuda's crystal waters (Image credit: Simon Bruty for SailGP)

"It's been a great week of sailing," Ainslie reflected. "We had fantastic conditions and, it's been a real showcase for SailGP.

"There's a long season ahead and we wanted to take a more conservative approach after some of the challenges we had last season. This event is a first step in the right direction.

"The final race was difficult for us as we had a bad start. We had an approach that we wanted to come in a little bit late, gybe on the foil and then go over the line. Unfortunately, we messed up the gybe and killed too much and couldn't get to the line.

"After that start we had to get loose to give us a chance of moving back up the places. We were able to split and separate and move back past Canada and towards Australia," Ainslie continued.

Australia SailGP Team helmed by Tom Slingsby celebrate winning Bermuda SailGP (Image credit: Thomas Lovelock for SailGP)

"Australia, however, sailed a fantastic race and it was always going to be difficult to move up on them. It was clear we weren't going to get past unless they made a horrendous error. At that point, we decided to start to protect second place."

With 11 events throughout the season, this competition rewards consistency. I don't like losing but we use that as motivation and learn from it. It was important we took home second place.

Sir Ben Ainslie (Image credit: Thomas Lovelock for SailGP)

The nine-strong SailGP fleet will meet next in Chicago on June 18 and 19.

Ainslie's team and that of Slingsby will look to replicate their positive starts to the season. The French team, led by Quentin Delapierre, must aim for cleaner racing in the United States.

In Bermuda, the French outfit were handed just the second black flag in SailGP history after a near collision with Great Britain on the starting line of race five.

Delapierre said it "bothered him" to have made such a mistake but that he continues to learn and aims to do better moving forwards.

The performance of New Zealand continues to perplex many. In Season 2, they finished fifth in the overall standings and could only manage sixth place after this opening weekend.

The team picked up a race victory in race four, but also seventh and eighth place finishes. Co-CEO Blair Tuke described it as a "pretty disappointing" weekend overall.