Dubai: The first of three fleet races in the Sea Dubai RC44 Gold Cup has commenced at the Dubai International Marine Club.
Weather conditions are reported to be favourable with plenty of action on the cards.
The series ends on Sunday.
Thursday's flights bought a mixture of unusual results with top teams Aqua and Aretmis only winning one of their matches while BMW Oracle, Team Aqua and Katusha all received penalties.
At the end of the day Ceeref came out on top with four clear wins.
Racing started almost on time on Thursday, which was a relief after Wednesday's disappointing due to poor winds.
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.’
Thursday's 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 End
