He’s built like a wrestler, has competed internationally as a swimmer, but is now a sailor. Truly one of Oman’s elite athletes, Nasser Al Mashari is currently in Nice on France’s glamorous Cote d’Azur racing in the Extreme Sailing Series as part of the international crew aboard the Oman Air catamaran.
The sea, either being in it or on top of it, has been integral to Al Mashari’s life from an early age. He grew up in a fishing village where he was first taught to swim by his elder brother. He subsequently joined a swimming club and from there rapidly progressed to being selected by the Oman Swimming Association. Between the ages of eight and 15 the young Al Mashari represented Oman in swimming competitions throughout the Gulf including the Arab Championship in Jordan, culminating in his participation in the World Youth Games in Moscow in 1998.
His transition to becoming a sailor occurred when he worked at the Al Bustan Inter Continental Palace hotel in Muscat. “I started off working in the water, as a lifeguard, like in Baywatch!” Al Mashari says. “And step by step I learned sailing there and then I started teaching people how to sail as well.”
In 2009 Al Mashari saw an advert in a newspaper for Oman Sail encouraging young Omanis to sign up for their program to develop their sailing skill. Fit from his swimming and having already worked as a sailing instructor, he was a perfect candidate. “I went to the Oman Sail office in Bander Al Rowdha marina, filled out the application and after a very hard test, I passed,” he recalls.
Part of the second annual influx of new recruits with Oman Sail, Al Mashari received further coaching as an instructor. He was one of 26 to travel from Oman to the Rockley Watersports centre on the south coast of the UK where he was put through the internationally recognised Royal Yachting Association sailing instructor course. However other eyes were also on him.
Thanks to his physique and strength, Al Mashari was picked to be part of Oman Sail’s Extreme 40 team, on a boat skippered by French offshore sailing legend Loick Peyron. In the Extreme Sailing Series (then known as the iShares Cup), he would get to compete against many of the world’s top sailors including past America’s Cup winners, round the world race veterans and Olympic medallists. For a budding sailor this was like winning the lottery, but also requiring a quantum leap in his skill, the equivalent of moving up from a go-kart to Formula 1 race car. To gain experience Al Mashari underwent intensive training in the UK before racing in events in Amsterdam and Almeria, Spain as an observer in the ‘5th man’ slot. But this would not last long and for the Extreme Sailing Series Asia tour, visiting Singapore, Hong Kong and Oman over the winter of 2009-10, he was promoted to bowman. Impressively Al Mashari got his first taste of victory with the Oman Sail Masirah team, winner of all three events.
Al Mashari has been the same boat ever since, the boat renamed Oman Air since 2011, and under a variety of skippers from French Volvo Ocean Race sailor Sidney Gavignet to Britain’s Ben Ainslie, the most successful Olympic sailor of all time, and for this season with former Olympic sailor and leading America’s Cup tactician, Californian Morgan Larson.
Having sailed under some of the top names in yacht racing, Al Mashari has the utmost respect for his latest skipper. “I am so proud to be sailing with Morgan. He is a huge name in sailing. He is very calm in the boat which makes me more comfortable. I want to stay sailing with him for ever!”
However with Oman Sail, Al Mashari has not only sailed on the ultra-fast 40ft long catamarans. In 2010 he competed in a very different event, the Tour de France a la Voile. This is the sailing equivalent of the world famous cycling event, following a course anti-clockwise around the French coastline. It is a sailed in monohulls and combines inshore races, similar those of the Extreme Sailing Series, with offshore legs between the numerous ports it visits.
Al Mashari leaves little doubt as to the boat and the type of sailing he prefers. “The Extreme 40 is a very fast boat, very exciting and I have more practice in the boat.” On the Tour de France a la Voile he says he very much enjoyed the inshore racing and the monohulls were good, but slow compared to the ultra-fast 40ft catamarans.
All this professional yacht racing sounds very exotic, sailing high tech boats and much overseas travel, but there are also sacrifices to be made. It involves being away from home for weeks on end and this is a hard commitment, particularly for Al Mashari who is married with two young children – one is three, the other just eight months.
“Whatever, I am doing it for Oman and Oman is always top over everything. We will do anything for Oman. My family, they agree with what we are doing and my wife, she is happy. She knows the idea and that I am going out to represent Oman, because Oman is our land, our sand and our earth. Oman is above everybody and everything.”
Aside from promoting Oman overseas, Al Mashari, at home, is also a role for young sailors just embarking on sailing in Optimist or Laser dinghies. As an instructor he says this makes him very proud. “They want to do what we are doing as adults. In the future a lot of Omanis are going to be skippers because the Oman Sail project is very marvellous.”
As to his aspirations, the ultimate aim for Al Mashari and The Wave, Muscat’s Hashim Al Rashdi is one day to campaign a boat on the Extreme Sailing Series with an all-Omani crew. “I might not be helm but I’d like to be skipper,” he says. “If you want something you have to fight for it, you never give up. We will select people who have the right skills.”
But this will come when they have the experience and the time is right. As ever, it is a case of ‘step by step’.
