© Matias Capizzano
America’s Cup helmsmen and crew faced off again at the 2015 49er World Championships in Argentina. Emirates Team New Zealand’s helmsman Pete Burling and crew Blair Tuke won their 23rd 49er regatta in a row. The last time Burling and Tuke have “lost” a regatta, they picked up the silver medal at London’s 2012 Olympics. At the Olympics the gold medal went to Artemis Racing’s Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen, who took silver at the recent world championships.
What does this mean for the 49er competition at the 2016 Olympics in Rio? Burling and Tuke look like the heavy favorites, with their string of wins. Burling also won the 2015 Moth Worlds, taking that title from Outteridge who had won the previous two Moth Worlds. But a closer look at the scoreline from Argentina shows that the battle could be very close. In the eight qualifying races, Burling and Tuke were dominant, taking first four times but they fared much worse in the Gold Fleet racing. After the first six races races Outteridge and Jensen were in danger of not qualifying and Iain Jensen was battling a stomach flu. They then posted two second place finishes to qualify for the Gold Fleet and had the best scoreline in the second half of the regatta. That said, Burling and Tuke had the gold medal sewn up before the medal race, thanks to their dominance early in the regatta.
Download the complete score sheet here.
Here’s a short report from the event: