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.”
This is the first time the Extreme Sailing Series has visited the French city of Nice, and tomorrow the winner will be crowned at a public prize giving on the picturesque Promenade des Anglais.
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