The driver of Japan’s SailGP boat has tempered his criticism after accusing the GB team of reckless sailing in the aftermath of Sir Ben Ainslie’s F50 catamaran slicing off its bow in a collision.
As Marine Industry News reports, the incident occurred at the start of the final race of the opening day of the Australian SailGP event in Sydney on Friday (17 December).
Nathan Outteridge of the Japan team initially complained that the incident had “definitely ruined our boat and any chance of winning this event”.
MUST WATCH! ? Crash causes chaos on day 1 in Sydney #AustraliaSGP pic.twitter.com/3L2ZViWYce
— SailGP (@SailGP) December 17, 2021
But he later dialled down his cricisim of Sir Ben’s team, saying: “It wasn’t malicious, there’s six people on board and you’ve got to try and look around and use everyone on board to spot the boats.”
Sir Ben described the collision as a “mistake”, adding: “The Americans, we were in a defensive mode against them and I just completely didn’t see the Japanese team at all.”
GB were given six penalty points by the chief umpire for causing serious damage. They also lose two points from their overall season total — effectively ending hopes of a top-three finish.
They also lose their approval to race on Saturday after Japan’s boat was ruled out of further action “due to the extensive damage caused”, SailGP confirmed in a statement.
