'I don't really know what happened': Australia's lucky escape as 'scary' incident rocks SailGP
Sailing legend Tom Slingsby has struggled to explain how Team Australia's San Francisco SailGP campaign came to a crashing halt due to a "scary" incident that could have easily resulted in injuries to members of his crew.
In a spectacular moment (watch the video above) at the start line of the final fleet race of the weekend, the Australian boat's wing collapsed into the water and almost clipped the Italian boat as all control was lost.
It was a shocking end to what had been an otherwise excellent grand prix for the Aussie boat, which had already sealed qualification into the three-boat final before the incident derailed its hopes of clinching overall victory.
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Slingsby admitted post-race the incident was all "a bit of a blur."
Australia SailGP Team are attended to by their support boat after the main wing broke. Simon Bruty for SailGP
"It was a bit of a shock," the nine-time world champion said.
"We were coming into the start, we were looking for a gap and we realised there wasn't going to be one, so we conceded and turned up.
"I don't really know what happened but my guess is that the wing failed right at that moment that we turned up sharply.
"It was a very scary situation... but when something like that happens all you can think about is whether everyone is going to get through this.
"Fortunately, we are all safe, unharmed and okay."
The cause of the wing failure is still unknown and an investigation will be conducted to work out exactly what went wrong for Team Australia.
Slingsby said he was keen to take a look at every angle of footage available to try to ensure that something similar doesn't happen again.
"We've just got to go and look at all the camera angles," he said.
"It was obviously close with the boats, but we need to determine if it was a wing failure or something else at play - did we make an error?
"It's heartbreaking obviously, but the results and the points are what they are. We are not even concerned about that.
"Now we just have to try and save the boat as best as we can." Team Australia
Tom Slingsby, driver of Australia SailGP Team, on board. Ricardo Pinto for SailGP
Despite being unable to take their place in the final, Australia leapt to the top of the season leaderboard after being relegated to a fourth-place result in San Francisco as a result of the wing failure.
With Great Britain enduring a poor weekend and finishing in seventh spot on the standings, Slingsby's crew capitalised to go to the top of the standings for the first time this season.
With Australia absent from the final in San Francisco, Spain took out the top spot on the podium ahead of team Canada in second and France, who took Australia's spot in the decider, finishing third.
The next stop on the SailGP calendar is the Rio de Janeiro Grand Prix on May 3, with Team Australia racing the clock to get the boat repaired in time.
