The Olympic gold medallist felt his boat did not have time to avoid the Swiss boat so could not be blamed by umpires for the crash.
“I’m still blown away, to be honest, that the umpires think we’re at fault,” Burling said.
“Initially, we had right of way with them as the windward boat, but then they’ve jibed onto starboard and gained right of way.
“We did everything we could to avoid the incident, I don’t think they (Switzerland) could say the same.”
Burling felt SailGP had now set the standard for the rest of the Perth regatta and the 12 that follow this season.
“I think it’s a super dangerous precedent for SailGP to set if that’s the ruling,” he said.
Loading
“Everyone’s obviously pretty shaken-up. It felt like we did a really good job through the build-up.
“To have an incident like that happen in the first race of the season is definitely not ideal.”
Fighting to recover from grand-final heartbreak last season, Australia had a mixed day, winning the first fleet race on the back of a hot start.
Eighth, ninth and second-placed finishes followed, but skipper Tom Slingsby was mostly pleased after Australia lost star signing Iain Jensen to injury this week.
The Olympic gold medallist is in a knee brace after falling during practice on Thursday and was replaced by veteran Glenn Ashby.
“I don’t think there’s any other team in the fleet who could lose their wing trimmer a day before and be sitting fourth overall, especially in such tough conditions,” Slingsby said.
The three boats that perform best across the weekend’s fleet races will advance to the event final on Sunday afternoon.
AAP
AAP’s reporter travelled to Perth as a guest of SailGP.
Read the full article here
