Peter Burling spoke with media in Auckland today, ten days out from SailGP Auckland, giving a candid account of a campaign that had already run into serious trouble before the New Zealand home event had even arrived.
The opening round in Perth was supposed to give the Black Foils an early foothold in the season. It did not go to plan. Within moments of the first race getting underway, the team's F50 sustained significant stern damage in an on-water incident involving Switzerland, and Burling spent the rest of the regatta watching from the sideline while his competitors raced on without him.
The repair job has cast a long shadow over the build-up to Auckland. Rather than sourcing parts from other boats already in the fleet, SailGP Technologies chose to rebuild the damaged section entirely from new, a decision made with fairness to the broader league in mind, though one that compressed the available timeline considerably.
“The challenge hasn’t really been the job itself, it’s been the timeframe,” Burling said. “To build the whole thing from scratch and turn it around in about ten days has been pretty impressive.”
Burling expressed confidence that the boat would be ready to sail in Auckland, with commissioning set to fall within the same training window allocated to every other team.
“We’ve always been very confident we’d be on the water here,” he said. “The SailGP Technologies team has done an amazing job getting everything back together.”
The damage done by the Perth incident extends beyond the points column. Race weekends are where SailGP teams sharpen their systems, bed in communication under pressure, and accumulate incremental learning that compounds over a season. Losing two full days of racing at the very outset strips away a layer of development that cannot easily be recovered elsewhere.
“You learn a lot during race weekends,” Burling said. “SailGP is very much about evolving while you’re racing, so missing that is definitely a cost.”
On the question of fault, Burling stopped short of accepting the umpiring decision that placed responsibility on New Zealand. Switzerland may have held the technical right of way under the rules, but Burling pointed to the complexity of how those rights shift when boats are executing aggressive turns at speed, with responsibilities changing rapidly from one moment to the next.
“For us, we still don’t really agree with the call,” he said. “But you’ve got to live by what the umpires say. That’s part of the sport.”
He was careful not to frame the matter as a simple grievance, placing it instead in the context of safety more broadly. Close-quarters foiling at this level will always generate moments of intensity, but his concern is about maintaining enough separation to keep crews safe and boats in the water rather than in the repair shed.
“For me, the boat doing the aggressive manoeuvre always has the opportunity to veer away,” he said. “I’d love to see people give a bit more margin if they’re going to try and swing over someone’s transom.”
The spectacle SailGP promises, Burling made clear, depends on boats actually racing, not undergoing structural rebuilds between events.
The Black Foils do not appear unsettled by everything that has happened. Burling spoke warmly about continuity within the sailing group and about the contribution new coaching staff have made, suggesting the team's foundations have held firm through the disruption.
“We’ve managed to keep a consistent line-up,” he said. “The new coaching staff are starting to add real value, and that fresh energy brings good momentum.”
That sense of momentum is reflected in what is happening on the Auckland waterfront. The SailGP stadium is approaching completion, and the SailGP village alongside Emirates Team New Zealand's base is taking shape at pace, with forklifts moving constantly as power, cooling, and technical infrastructure are installed to support teams, boats, and support crews across the event.
It amounts to a tangible daily reminder of just how close the regatta now is.
For the Black Foils, SailGP Auckland is less a moment of reckoning than an opportunity for a genuine reset. Perth brought frustration, contested decisions, and enforced inactivity. Auckland offers something more straightforward and considerably more valuable: racing. Getting back onto the foils, rebuilding competitive rhythm, and doing it in front of a home crowd carries far more weight now than anything that unfolded in those opening minutes of the season.
