Racing started almost on time today, a relief after yesterday. The postponement flag was taken down at 12:10 and the RC44 fleet was released into a gentle but sufficient breeze. The boats have been split into two groups to make up for the lack of racing on Day One, each team will race against each other in its group. The leaders of the two groups will then compete for the title, the two teams in second place will compete and so on. The fleet racing will continue as usual on Friday. The first teams out were Sea Dubai and Artemis, both boats suffered breakages but Sea Dubai won victory over Artemis giving the team a good boost. Between the next flight Kazuhiko Sofuku, the Sea Dubai bowman had to go up the mast to make repairs but spirits were high. There’s a good rapport within the team who try to sail together as much as possible in various boats and races to enable them to build strengths and understanding to be able to work better together. This race has attracted many new faces to Dubai including Neville Crichton, who is sailing BMW Oracle and Australia & New Zealands leading maxi yacht skipper on Alfa Romeo. ‘It’s my first time in Dubai and I’m very impressed with what I’ve seen. The racing today has been challenging in light winds but it’s been nice, I really like the boat, it’s my first time sailing on the RC44 and it’s interesting.’ The flights bought a mixture of unusual results with top teams Aqua and Aretmis only winning one of their matches and BMW Oracle, Team Aqua and Katusha all received penalties, at the end of the day Ceeref came out on top with four clear wins. The first of three fleet racing starts tomorrow at 11:30.

Sharon Allison

See RC44 racing images:

Results:

1st Ceeref – Igor Lah

2nd Puerto Calero Islas Canarias – Daniel Calero

3rd Organika – Maciej Nawrocki

4th No Way Back – Pieter Heerema

5th BMW Oracle – Neville Crichton

6th Katusha – Bob Little

7th Team Austria – Rene Mangold

8th Sea Dubai – Markus Wieser

9th Artemis – Torbjorn Tornqvist

10th Team Aqua – Cameron Appleton

Last Updated ( Thursday, 26 November 2009 )