China team gains crucial experience at SailGP San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO -- The 2019 San Francisco SailGP Championship ended here Sunday as Australia claimed victory with 47 points atop the Leaderboard, and China, a new-comer in the high performance competitive sailing event, gained more experience as it aims to earn a spot on world stage.

The Australian SailGP team, helmed by Olympic gold medalist Tom Slingsby, rallied to take the top honor by beating Japan one point after two days of fleet racing in the San Francisco Bay.

China, which brought up the rear, finished sixth in five rounds of race with five other teams from Australia, France, Britain, Japan and the United States at the two-day SailGP San Francisco.

Chinese team Grinder Liu Leo Ming said that although they lost the match Sunday for the San Francisco leg, he and his teammates still did a good job and cooperated well with each other.

"Actually we did better today in terms of overall speed than yesterday, but still we were a little bit slow at the start, plus the wingsail that buckled yesterday, our final scores are not satisfying," Liu said.

"We had a great challenge here in San Francisco because it was much windier at sea than in Australia, and we tried to adjust a bit for a good shape, and I think we were in a good shape today and learned a lot from other teams," he said.

Liu noted that he and his teammates had improved much in maneuvering the boat for headwind sailing, particular sailing against headwind in the straight direction.

"We are not very happy about our final results, but we've gained much experience from the race, such as the good cooperation between our teammates, and I'm confident we can do better in the next stop of the championship," Liu added.

China team skipper Phil Robertson said Chinese sailors didn't have much experience in this kind of highly competitive event, and they have a lot to learn from their peers.

"We're obviously pretty disappointed about how we finished and ended up, but we're a young and pretty inexperienced team and we have a lot to learn," he told Xinhua.

"We're not satisfied about our overall result and we got a wish we would be a little bit more competitive. So it's a good thing, it's really motivating," Robertson said.

He added they had a problem with their boat's windsail on the first day. "We're trying to set it up and then into racing Saturday and Sunday, and we just haven't had the time with it. So, we've been slow and it's pretty tough."

He also expressed the confidence they can fix the problem and keep in a much better shape for the New York leg.

"There's a lot of aspects we study and we look at other teams what they're doing, all the good stuff they're doing and see how we're doing things differently," he said.

"But first of all we have to focus on ourselves. You know we are currently in the last place. So the only thing we can do is focus on ourselves of how we can improve to get up to them," Robertson added.

China team CEO Bruno Dubois echoed Robertson's remarks, saying the Chinese sailors are accumulating their experience on a sports event that is rather new to them.

"We have a lack of experience. Those two teams have done five years on those boats... We need more work, more time on the water, more learning time," he said.

"When I look at the long term objective and what we have to achieve, it's not that a disappointment. We go step by step. I have the feeling that when you go forward, there's always small backwards, then coming forward. And I think it will be fine for us for the event in New York," Dubois noted.

SailGP next heads to New York over the weekend of June 21-22.

The two-day regatta in San Francisco featured boats from six countries sailing the identical, high performance, foiling 50-foot catamarans known as F50, which are capable of reaching speeds over 50 knots -- close to 100 kilometers per hour.

As the sport is fairly new to China and Japan, the two teams currently will have assistance on board from foreign sailors with the aim to build crews of 100 percent native nationality over the next few years.