The light winds in Nice continued to test the Extreme 40 fleet during the second day of the Extreme Sailing Series today, which saw the racing get off to a slow start. A little more breezewas welcomed by the sailors in the afternoon, particularly by The Wave, Muscat who went on to claim a handful of top five finishes late in the day, moving them two places up the leaderboard. Oman Air won the first of the eight races sailed today, and at the end of day two, just one point separates the Omani teams.
The racing took place in two sessions today to make the most of the early morning breeze, and as the sun was still rising over Nice, the Extreme 40 teams were busy on the dock preparing to race. Oman Air came out on great form, winning the first race of the day, but it wasn’t long before the breeze died away. The light airs even getting the better of experienced America’s Cup sailor Dean Barker on Emirates Team New Zealand, who failed to finish race two races within the allocated time. Ben Ainslie, Oman Air’s Skipper reflected on the teams performance.
“The win was a great way to start the day but overall we’re not happy with the results. Lots of the teams had an average day today and there are a few frustrated people in the boat park tonight. I think we can expect more of the same conditions for the rest of the week so we need to work on being consistent. At the minute most of the teams are struggling with that and I think consistency is the way to get good results at the end of the event here.”
Going into the final race of the day the Oman Sail stablemates were tied on equal points. After a hard fought battle it was the team on Oman Air who came out on top, and finished the day in seventh place, just one point ahead of their team mates on The Wave, Muscat.
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