MUSCAT: The second part of Leg 6 – race 13b – took place just off Mussanah Marina this afternoon. With winds from the north-east reaching 14kts it made for perfect conditions for the short one-round, windward/leeward course.
Sidney Gavignet and his team on EFG Bank (Monaco) once again led at the windward mark but on the downwind leg it was difficult for trailing boats to find an overtaking lane. With super-efficient team work, Gavignet’s team were able to take advantage of their position and hold the lead to the finish.
“It was a good race, enjoyable but very short just 0.5 miles on a windward leeward course. Upwind was very interesting but downwind not so good because it was more straight line sailing so difficult to extend our lead,” Gavignet chatting as he came ashore said.
For Messe Frankfurt Sailing Team it seemed to be business as usual finishing in second place.
“It was a fantastic race, sort of inport style but much longer. Our start wasn’t great but we worked our way back and round the top mark just behind EFG Bank,” Marcel Herrera said.
“It was really simple racing and we managed to get into the grove and really work on boatspeed. We were about 25 seconds behind EFG Bank (Monaco) at the finish line.”
“We take our hats off to the race committee because it is probably the best thing they could have done in the circumstances. Splitting the race into two with the .5 coefficient makes it a bit more difficult because you have all of a sudden got to perform at the same level for more times but our boys did really well,” commenting on the race committee’s decision to split Leg 6 into two races, 13a and 13b, Herrera, added.
In third place today, was Team Delft Challenge – TU Delft skippered by Kay Heemskerk, which now puts them just .25 pts ahead of the girls on Al-Thuraya Bank Muscat going into the final race, Leg 7.
Tomorrow’s race to Muscat is just 41 nautical miles. The race committee plans to start at 0800, which means boats will leave the dock at 0730.