
Team Australia have been pipped by New Zealand in the podium race of the opening regatta of the SailGP season.
The slow-speed final, sailed in light winds on Lake Michigan to the backdrop of the Chicago skyline, ended with a rare defeat for the global championship's three-time defending champions Australia and their skipper Tom Slingsby.
“Second place in the first event of the year, we're off to a good start,” said Slingsby, an Olympic gold medallist and former America's Cup winner.
"We feel like we sailed really well and we had a good shot at it, but the Kiwis were better in the final race, so hats off to them.”
The Kiwis took a favourable position at the start, had the best angle to the first mark and held on for victory off Chicago's Navy Pier.
Team Canada, helmed by Phil Robertson, finished third on a day when the wind was so painfully light that the high-performance 50-foot catamarans were unable to get up on their foils and reach top speed.
NZ skipper Peter Burling described his team's victory as an “awesome way to bounce back” from the season three's grand final in San Francisco in early May.
In that race, Slingsby and Australia won their third-straight $US1 million ($A1.5m), winner-takes-all championship by beating the Kiwis and Team France.
"Everyone would prefer to be sailing in a bit more breeze, but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do," said Burling, the two-time reigning America's Cup champion helmsman and a three-time Olympic medallist.
“It’s amazing how such a short racecourse can have so much going on.
"You make one little mistake and you just get passed.”
It was an underwhelming start to the season for British sailing star Ben Ainslie, who finished seventh, and Team USA's Australian skipper Jimmy Spithill, who was ninth in the 10-boat fleet.
SailGP next moves to Los Angeles, making its debut in the Californian city on the weekend of July 22-23.
- with AP