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01.10.11

French challenge continues to test sailors

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The Extreme Sailing Series in Nice opened for the public today, where the spectators flocked to the Promenade des Anglais to watch the 11 Extreme 40’s in action. The light airs continued to control the racing today, much to the frustration of the international teams, including the Oman Sail teams Oman Air and The Wave, Muscat who have struggled to master the tough conditions in Nice.

For the third day in a row the light airs have dominated the racing. In the first race of the day four boats were victim to the breeze, including The Wave, Muscat, who failed to finish within the allocated time frame, resulting in a disqualification from the race. It was a frustrating day for the team, who struggled to get off the start line in the conditions, and at the end of the day the team have slipped to tenth place. Leigh McMillan, The Wave, Muscat’s Skipper spoke about the team’s frustration. “Nice is an amazing city and we can appreciate being here, but for us as sailors the conditions are really testing. We need to work on our light wind performance which is obvious from this event but I don’t think there is any big secret to doing well here as most of the teams are struggling to get consistent results. We are lucky in that we have a strong team within Oman Sail and we are able to keep each other motivated.”

Oman Air had a mixed day on the water, getting off to a strong start where they secured a third and a fourth in the first two races, but the light winds got the better of them midday when the team struggled to finish within the top five.Oman Air went on to show great team spirit and finished the day on a high, with a second and a fifth place respectively in the final two races. Nasser Al Mashari, the teams Bowman commented: "We had a slightly better day today but the winds are still affecting our performance. It is difficult to be consistent in these conditions and I think of lot of the results depend on luck and who can find the wind. We still have two days of racing and we really want to prove ourselves as we are getting closer to the season finale. Our target is to get better results not only for the rest of this event, but for the rest of the season." Oman Air finishes the day in eighth place, three points behind Emirates TeamNew Zealand.

The racing in Nice is proving to be extremely unpredictable and today saw a complete shake up on the leaderboard. An impressive performance by Artemis Racing (SWE) which included four wins out of the six races sailed, saw the team climb from fifth place to finish the day in pole position, whilst Red Bull Extreme (AUT), who have been top of the leaderboard since day one slipped to fifth place.

The spectators flocked to watch the Extreme 40’s in action today, and Oman Sail have been attracting particular attention from the French public. Khamis Al Anbouri, The Wave, Muscat’s Bowman, reflected on Oman Sail’s presence in Nice. “Today was a special day for me. I met an old French man who used to live in Oman in the eighties and he came and spoke to me after seeing the Omani flag on our boat. The man was skippering the Shabab Oman ship back then, and he was telling me about how much he loved Oman and that it's the best country he lived in during his entire life. We were disappointed by the results on the water but meeting him really made my day!"