Thanks to Suzanne and Alan for this sailing update. Ed
Muscat, Oman was the venue for the start of the 2013 season of Extreme 40 sailing races. Returning champion Leigh McMillan, who hails from the Island, was the headline Act for much of 2012, and the British Olympian was hoping for a win in Muscat that would set the scene for the rest of the season.
McMillan: “A pretty solid team”
Before the races Leigh said “We’re a pretty solid team, and when we’ve got things going right and we’re working well together, we’re good at stringing a lot of good results together – so that’s the key. If we can do that we will be right there in the mix at the end, we’ve just got to try and sail cleanly – then we will be in good shape!”
Stadium racing began in perfect fashion with plenty of wind, but as the Arabian sun heated things up the wind slowly faded making each race an event on its own. There are several new teams this year so each Act, to be raced in countries around the World, will certainly sort out the better teams.
Day one
After seven races on day one Leigh’s team on ‘TheWave, Muscat’ was just one point ahead of Roman Hagara’s team on ‘Red Bull Sailing’ with Ernesto Bertarelli’s Swiss team on ‘Alinghi’ third.
Twenty knots of wind dropped to four knots during day two and although both the two top teams had raced to 105 points it was Red Bull Sailing Team from Austria who were on the podium with Leigh’s team in second place.
Day three
Day three saw the new Kiwi skippers on board Team Korea and GAC Pindar both having a good solid sailing day with both quickly adapting to the Extreme 40 racecourse. With their respective skippers, Olympic Silver medallist Peter Burling and world number five ranked match racer William Tiller, both teams secured finishes in the top half of the fleet.
However at the top end of the leaderboard ‘Red Bull Sailing Team’ piled on the points ahead of ‘The Wave, Muscat’ with points at the end of the day totaling 177 points and 162 points respectively.
Final day
Going into the final day’s racing everyone was wondering if Red Bull Sailing Team could be on course for their first ever Act win. Would Alinghi finish on the podium for the first time since 2011 or would defending champion Leigh find his form and pull it out of the bag. Everything was to race for with a final double points race.
In classic Extreme Sailing Series style it came down to the final race for the winner to be decided. Defending champion Leigh McMillan and his team on The Wave, Muscat sailed a perfect day coming back from a 15 point deficit to Red Bull Sailing Team to claim overall victory, in the closest possible finish on their home port
McMillan: “You can’t always get it right”
After racing an elated and slightly shell-shocked Leigh commented: “We have had a mixed bag this week but an exceptional day today, that’s just the way the sport is. You can’t always get it right, but today we did it when it absolutely mattered. I’m not sure if we will be able to go and pull something off like that again, at every event! It was a tall ask for the team today but I’m just delighted that we just managed to have such a good day.”
Act 1 Result:
1st The Wave, Muscat (OMA) Leigh McMillan, Ed Smyth, Pete Greenhalgh, Musab Al Hadi, Hashim Al Rashdi 232 points.
2nd Red Bull Sailing Team (AUT) Roman Hagara, Hans Peter Steinacher, Matthew Adams, Pierre Le Clainche, Graeme Spence 226 points.
3rd Alinghi (SUI) Ernesto Bertarelli, Morgan Larson, Pierre Yves Jorand, Nils Frei, Yves Detrey 218 points.
Next stop, Singapore, where the fleet will race within the world famous Marina Bay Reservoir, from the 11th-14th April with a new invitational team, Team Aberdeen Singapore.
