SailGP: Black Foils on track to compete at home regatta on Waitematฤ Harbour
Black Foils skipper Peter Burling is supremely confident his boat will be back on the water for SailGP Auckland next week, after suffering significant damage at the league’s season-opening regatta at Perth last month.
New Zealand and Switzerland collided in the opening race at Fremantle, shearing the transom at the back of Amokura and sidelining the Kiwis for the rest of the weekend.
Adding insult to injury, the race umpire adjudged the Foils at fault and docked them seven race points, which became academic, when they weren’t able to take the water again.
They arrive at their home event at the foot of the league table and a slight question mark over the seaworthiness of their boat.
“We’ve always been very confident we’d be on the water here,” Burling insisted. “SailGP Technologies and the whole tech team have done an amazing job keeping all the boats in one piece and back together.
“That confident is growing as well. We’ve seen the boat arrive and get shipped out to C-Tech, where they’ll put the new piece on. The stern is already here – that arrived a couple of days ago.
“It’s cool to see it all happening. There’s some complication around getting the physical parts to New Zealand in time, so that part’s all gone well and I’m sure the team will do an awesome job finishing it off now.”
Amokura is unloaded for repairs at C-Tech in Avondale.
Photo: Supplied/Black Foils
Under the SailGP agreement, all replacement parts are produced by the organisers and shipped from their innovation centre at Southampton. Amokura has been transported to Avondale, where the new piece will be fitted.
The hardest part of that equation has already been achieved.
“It’s been pretty impressive to see them build the whole thing from scratch and turn it around in a 10-day period, then shipped down to New Zealand to meet the boat,” Burling said.
With no practice scheduled until Friday next week, the Kiwis are under no pressure to take to the water until then, with racing on the Waitematฤ Harbour beginning the next day.
Peter Burling is still not happy with the penalty handed to his Black Foils team.
Photo: Christopher Pike for SailGP / Supplied
“We won’t get any additional hours and I don’t think we should need any additional hours,” Burling said. “There’s nothing from an electronics/hydraulics point of view, where you normally need time commissioning.
“There’s not a massive amount attached to the back of the boat. There will definitely be a fair bit of checks going on in the shed and we’ll go through a process on that first day to load it up reasonably slowly, but that’s about all we can do.”
While all teams have been idle since the Perth stopover, the damage hasn’t inconvenienced the Kiwis unduly since.
“The biggest thing was we missed two days of racing in Perth, which is never ideal,” Burling said. “You learn a lot during the race weekends, and every weekend you go into with parts you want to practice, parts you want to improve.
“SailGP is very much about evolving, while you’re racing, so there’s definitely a cost to the team for missing that racing. We were in really great shape going into that weekend and it was tough getting taken out in the first race, but that’s part of sport.”
Amokura awaits assistance after its collision with Switzerland at Perth.
Photo: James Gourley/SailGP
Burling still doesn’t agree with the penalty slapped on his team, but is resigned to the outcome.
“I’ve definitely seen [the incident] a few more times – it seems to pop up everywhere. We still don’t really agree with the call, but we have to live by what the umpires say.
“Tough break in that regard, but also we’re hoping the league can learn from the incident, in terms of how we can keep the boats apartโฆ we hope there’s some good change in that regard.”
New Zealand are now on the backfoot, as they pursue an elusive SailGP crown. They have contested the last three finals, topping the table in 2024, but have managed just second and two thirds.
With 12 more events on the calendar, the Kiwis still have plenty of time to chase down their rivals, but Auckland did not prove a happy hunting ground for them 12 months ago, when they failed to make the final.
Australia triumph at SailGP Auckland 2025.
Photo: Bob Martin for SailGP
“Last year, we had a lot of gremlins with the boat, with the electronics, and hopefully we’ve managed to get them behind us,” Burling said. “Everyone has a few waves, where they have things go wrong with the boat and they struggle to get to the bottom of quickly at times.
“Hopefully, we’re clean on that part of the boat and we can put on an awesome show.
“It’s a little too far out for long-range forecast, but we’re really excited with the preparation we’ve done and the consistent line-up we’ve managed to keep.”
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