The penultimate day of the Extreme Sailing Series in Nice played out today, with both Oman Air and The Wave, Muscat claiming valuable points, and even more valuable places, on the leaderboard. It wasn’t all plain sailing today for the team on Oman Air however, and a controversial penalty in race five resulted in a protest with the jury, leaving the team frustrated at the end of today.
In the light breezes the race committee managed to put on five races before the wind once again faded away, making it impossible to race the boats. Oman Air posted a series of good results in the opening races, with two second places, a third and a fourth which elevated the team two places on the leaderboard to sixth place. However, race five didn’t go so smoothly for Oman Air, who crossed the start line early, resulting in a penalty putting the team at an immediate disadvantage. Despite the set back, the team fought hard to make their way through the fleet to finish the race second. However, unknown to them, they were given a penalty during racing, and after finishing the race without completing the penalty, the team were disqualified. Ben Ainslie, the teams Skipper explained:
“The umpires gave a penalty as they felt we infringed Rothschild and Emirates Team New Zealand at the top mark, but they didn’t signal until we were coming towards the finish line and we weren’t sure if it was for us or Rothschild and ETNZ. We carried on racing as we assumed they would have enforced it, but after finding out we were disqualified when we finished the race, we were pretty annoyed to say the least! If we had been awarded the second place we would be fifth overall at the end of today so it is really disappointing.”
The team on The Wave Muscat had a strong start to the day finishing fifth and second in the first two races. Despite a disappointing eleventh place in race three, the team still managed to gain a place on the leaderboard and finish today in ninth place. Khamis Al Anbouri spoke about the team’s expectations going into the final day tomorrow. “We are third on the overall Series leaderboard, and the focus for tomorrow is to try and gain as many points as possible to help us remain in a strong position overall. The racing is tough here and the finish line today was just four metres from the shore, so it doesn’t give any room to manoeuvre the boats and there is no room for error. It has been a tough event but we are proud to be representing Oman, and we hope everyone will support us tomorrow.”
Oman Sail were host to a selection if VIP’s today, including their Senior Board Members, and Baptise Miyer from the French Sailing Federation. Nicolas Honor, project manager for Oman Sail’s offshore team was also in Nice to show his support, and he reflected: “It is great to have the opportunity to see another side of the Oman Sail project. The Extreme 40’s are a very different kind of racing to the offshore racing I am involved in and the sailors required a very different set of skills, but we all work towards the same goals. To promote Oman and to help develop the Omani sailing talent.”
The leaderboard has changed again today, the French team of Groupe Edmond de Rothschild lead going into the final day tomorrow. Despite a win in the final race of the day, the leaders at the start of today, Artemis, have slipped to third, 0.5 points off Alinghi (SUI). It will be extremely challenging, but not impossible, for Oman Air to finish on the podium tomorrow, but Nasser Al Mashari, the teams Bowman, is realistic tomorrow’s racing. “The teams who are ahead of us would need to have a really bad day for us to finish on the podium, and with the standard of this fleet, you can’t count on anyone having a bad day! So we are realistic about what we can achieve and we will still come out and try our best.”
