By Alexander Smith
LONDON, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Black Foils co-CEO Blair Tuke said the New Zealand team are building for the future, including protecting the oceans fundamental to their sport, as they near the end of what he said had been a "really tough" SailGP season.
A high-speed crash with France in front of New Zealand's home crowd in February resulted in the team's sailors being shore bound for months and missing four events while SailGP built a replacement for their F50 catamaran, which was beyond
repair.
"It's been a really tough one is probably the only way to put it. We had four months when we didn't sail or race as a team," Tuke told Reuters in a recent interview.
"It's a mix now. We're obviously trying to build for next season and develop, but probably the best way to do that is to try and put your best foot forward and to race well and put yourselves under pressure," the 37-year-old wing trimmer added.
With no prospect of reaching November's grand final in Abu Dhabi, the team are also working on developing new talent.
"The season's out of reach," Tuke said, adding that Black Foils, who now lie 12th on the season leaderboard, were aiming to "win race weekends and build processes and experience that sets us up for the future".
Tuke is a fan of the new group racing format that splits SailGP's now 13-strong fleet in two, partly as a precaution aimed at avoiding clashes like the dramatic one in Auckland.
"It had to happen at some point as SailGP grew and I think following some of the incidents that happened earlier this year it maybe got fast-tracked a little quicker," he said.
'MUCH BIGGER THAN OURSELVES'
Tuke said New York-based MSP Sports Capital's acquisition of a majority stake in the Black Foils gives them a "really exciting opportunity", both on and off the water.
"We're so focused on becoming a global sports brand that represents New Zealand on the world stage, that pushes what's possible on the performance side," said Tuke, adding that the team is also targeting "something much bigger than ourselves".
Having MSP's backing has 'supercharged' the team's ability to achieve all those things, said Tuke, partly with reference to the Live Ocean Foundation he founded with co-CEO and longtime sailing partner Pete Burling in late 2019.
"The ocean is declining fast and its health is key to our future on this planet," Tuke said of the campaigns which Live Ocean has launched in New Zealand to "bring people round to issues they otherwise wouldn't be made aware of".
"We've got the platform in sport to do something," he said, adding that he and Burling had wanted to be able to integrate their campaigning into something that they did every day.
For Tuke, establishing the team's Live Ocean partnership was a "non-negotiable" in discussions with SailGP, which runs its own impact league among teams, from the outset.
"I am very committed to making sure we leave this place in a better state than when I came into it," he said.
(Reporting by Alexander Smith; Editing by Toby Davis)
