Australia win chaotic SailGP in Auckland after sailor breaks both legs in horror crash

Auckland: Australia have won the first SailGP event to feature a split fleet after organisers acted to change race rules following a horror crash on Saturday which left two sailors in hospital.

The collision between the New Zealand and France boats occurred just after the start of the third race on Saturday. New Zealand’s grinder, Louis Sinclair, suffered compound fractures to both legs. A compound fracture occurs when the bone pierces through the skin. Sinclair will require surgery for his injuries.

France’s Manon Audient was inside the cockpit when she was violently thrown forward on impact, breaking the catamaran’s steering wheel. She was taken by ambulance to Auckland Hospital and is being kept under observation while awaiting results to rule out a major abdominal injury.

Racing was abandoned shortly after the crash on Saturday, but continued on day two under revised conditions. For the first time in SailGP history, the race fleet was split into two groups, which organisers said would mitigate further collisions caused by congestion on a tight course in Auckland. The catamarans had reached speeds up to 88 km/h on day one.

The fleet was expanded to 13 F50 catamarans this season but repairs to the Spanish boat in the season opener in Perth last month meant only 12 boats raced. Day one in Auckland was the first time all 13 had raced at the same time.

France’s driver Quentin Delapierre said the addition of another yacht crowding the start line may have been a contributing factor in the collision.

“It’s probably part of the equation, but it’s way more complicated than this, so I don’t want to say too much,” he said.

After the victory, Australian driver Tom Slingsby said he felt the decision to split the fleet had been the right one.

“In my opinion it was the right call to split the fleets with such a tight racetrack and with the forecast being windier today you’ve got to make decisions like that that are going to ensure the safety of the athletes,” he said.

“Our sport has risk. It’s an extreme sport like F1, like other extreme sports. What’s acceptable risk and what’s not? That’s what we, as a group of sailors, have to talk to the organising authority about.

“But, if we say that it’s not acceptable to have boats racing close together or boats racing in tight racetracks it’s just not going to work for our sport, our sport will no longer be relevant. So there is a level of acceptable risk that we all need to decide on.”

SailGP announced the decision to split the fleet in a statement on Sunday morning. “The decision has been taken with stronger wind conditions forecast for Sunday – on the tight, stadium-style racetrack,” the statement read. “Following Saturday’s on-water incident involving New Zealand and France, 11 F50s will compete on Sunday.

“The format is designed to support competitive racing on a tight course, while maintaining SailGP’s high-performance standards and broadcast delivery. Splitting the fleet reduces congestion at certain places in the course, especially at the bottom mark.”

There are plans in place to split the fleet permanently once a 14th catamaran is added next year.

“We want to expand to 20 teams,” SailGP founder and chief executive Russell Coutts said on Friday. “Next year, team 14 will enter the game and that [team’s] already been sold. So we’ll go to a split fleet of seven and seven and the top four teams will then go through to the final of each event.”

Slingsby called on organisers to ensure fairness when splitting the fleet, believing Australia had been hard done by when the boats were divided on Sunday.

Australia raced in group B based on standings from day one. France and New Zealand were sorted into Group A but neither raced due to the substantial damage caused by the collision. The top three teams – Australia, Spain, and Great Britain – qualified for the winner-take-all final.

“I felt that our fleet was the harder fleet,” Slingsby said. “The way the points worked out, the top two teams from the other fleet were the New Zealand team and the French, and they obviously couldn’t race today. I think there’s probably got to be... a different way of doing the split fleets.”

Australia now top the leaderboard heading into the Sydney Sail Grand Prix later this month.

On Sunday, Coutts praised the efforts of the rescue crew.

“I thought the response team did a fantastic job yesterday,” he said. “[There was a] sailor trapped in a compartment on the boat and the response to that was, I thought, excellent.

“But there were lessons to be learned about the communications and the way we assessed the situation and there always are... You can take those lessons away and perhaps respond in a better way in the future and learn by it and perhaps save a life if you have a similar situation in the future.”

This masthead travelled to Auckland as a guest of SailGP.