4TH CONSECUTIVE 49ER WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP FOR BURLING & TUKE
Emirates Team New Zealand sailors Peter Burling & Blair Tuke have won their 4th straight 49er World Championship in overwhelming fashion in Clearwater, Florida.
Beginning the regatta with 5 straight wins, the writing was on the wall that Burling and Tuke would extend their unbeaten run in the 49er class to 24 straight regatta wins.
After 15 races, 9 in qualifying & 6 in gold fleet racing the kiwi duo had stamped their now usual authority over the fleet before todays final medal race of the regatta.
Going into the double points medal race Burling and Tuke were leading the second placed Australian crew of Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen, the last team to beat Burling and Tuke in 2012, by a massive 43 points.
Conditions were light and shifty on the final day, contrasting to how the regatta began with top end wind and waves.
“It’s been really challenging, a big range of conditions,” explained Blair Tuke. “We’ve sailed in up to 20 knots with big waves, and light tricky stuff so it’s been a real mix of conditions and we’re happy with how we’ve been going across the board.”
Without the need to sail the medal race the pressure was off Tauranga’s Peter Burling and Keri Keri’s Blair Tuke, but they finished the regatta strongly with a 3rd place and with a net total of 40 points, 41 points clear of the 2nd placed Austrians on 81 points followed by the 3rd placed British crew on 88.
Four consecutive 49er World Championship titles is something not seen before and the achievement places Peter Burling and Blair Tuke firmly into the record books. They now draw equal to Nathan Outteridge’s accomplishment of four 49er World titles (2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012).
“We were really happy to go out there with a pretty healthy lead going into the day but still a bit of work to do,” says Peter Burling. “And we’re absolutely stoked to go out there and finish it off with a couple of races to spare. It’s always a pretty nice way to do it.”
Blair Tuke concluded, “We are stoked with the start to 2016, really happy to go back to back with 4 World Championships straight, and now looking forward to a big year on towards Rio.”
There is no rest for Burling and Tuke, current World Sailors of the Year, the next challenge is switching into America’s Cup mode, joining the rest of the Emirates Team New Zealand crew of Glenn Ashby, Ray Davies & Guy Endean for the first Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series event in Oman where the team lead the series by 10 points.
