Extreme Sailing Series: Underdogs on top in Singapore

(February 20, 2014) – The much-anticipated opening Act of the 2014 Extreme Sailing Series™ began today in Singapore under the gaze of the cities soaring skyscrapers, where eight races produced six different winners.

The Swiss flagged Realtstone were the form team, executing a consistent strategy in the trying conditions, to finish the opening day of the global tour top of the leaderboard – their best result since joining the circuit last year.

Some of the newer teams struggled to get to grips with the stadium racecourse, posting a mixed bag of results and a crash between defending champions The Wave, Muscat and GAC Pindar will leave the Aussies with a night of repairs ahead.

Realstone, who after Wednesday’s practice racing described themselves as ‘the underdogs’ played a low risk game, setting up for manouvres and executing them precisely to give themselves some breathing space on the packed racecourse.

“We rotated the team a lot in 2013 to finally be in a position to chose the best people for the best positions and get here with an optimal configuration,” explained skipper Jerome Clerc. “We have sailed well with good starts, Arnaud made the boat go fast and we have followed simple schemes with starts on the same side and regular tacks in each leg. We noticed this worked out well so we have kept this strategy. It’s the first day, all the teams are warming up so we are still the outsiders!”

Eight races were sailed – the first of up to 250 this year – and in the continually shifting breeze, which ranged from 4-10 knots with slightly bigger gusts, the teams tacticians had it all on. Groupama sailing team’s skipper Franck Cammas – who won the seventh race of the day, only to follow it up with a last place – explained how tough the conditions were.

“We have had more wind than expected so it was pretty hairy on the water,” noted Cammas. “The wind flows in between the buildings and it all becomes very shifty. We had to take what we could. The teams who started well were not necessarily the teams who finished at the top. The key, in short, is a mix of a little bit of luck, be at the good spot, try to anticipate things and being opportunist.”

On such a compact course, and with such short, intense races, the mark roundings were nail bitingly close, and those on shore found themselves holding their breathe as the Extreme 40s seemingly created space where there was none. In the sixth race of the day, The Wave, Muscat and GAC Pindar found out just how tight the course is, when the Omani boat t-boned into the back of the Aussies in a port-starboard incident, leaving a significant hole in their boat and the team with a night of repairs ahead in the pitlane.

“GAC Pindar put in a tack, and at the last minute they looked like they weren’t going to avoid us,” explained Leigh McMillan. “I tried to smash it into a tack but there wasn’t anywhere to go – plus I lost grip of the tiller and tripped over, and unfortunately went into them. We’ve had plenty of bad days and we will have to go back, look at the videos and take some lessons out of today and come back stronger tomorrow.”

Many of the fleet struggled for consistency today, and none more so than newcomers Emirates Team New Zealand and J.P. Morgan BAR, who finished the day with two race wins a piece – but also a handful of last places.

“We’re all having to learn pretty quickly, and certainly in this tight venue – even for the experienced guys it’s pretty tough,” Olympic champion Ben Ainslie commented. “It’s a really strong fleet, it’s one of the toughest fields we’ve ever had and we’re obviously very new to this so we really learnt a lot today.”

There is little light on the leaderboard after day one, with just 18 points separating first placed Realstone from eighth placed Oman Air. The Wave, Muscat, Gazprom Team Russia, GAC Pindar and the local boat Team Aberdeen Singapore have a bit of catching up to do – and with up to 24 races still to come, there is plenty of opportunity to do it.

Marina Bay Reservoir will provide a temporary residence for the 12 Extreme 40s for the next three days of Stadium Racing, and if today’s racing is anything to go by, Act 1 with the support of Local Event main partner Aberdeen Asset Management, could be anyone’s game.

Live race coverage for the four day event begins Friday, providing an enhanced multi-camera video feed produced by Sunset+Vine|APP including graphics and analytics by SAP, and commentary in English by sailing journalist Andy Rice and former Extreme 40 sailor David ‘Freddie’ Carr.

Coverage will be live streamed at 0300-0430 EST. Click here to view.

Event website: www.extremesailingseries.com

Day One standings (8 races)
1. Realstone (SUI) Jérôme Clerc, Arnaud Psarofaghis, Bruno Barbarin, Thierry Wassem, Nils Palmieri; 56 points.
2. Alinghi (SUI) Morgan Larson, Stuart Pollard, Pierre-Yves Jorand, Nils Frei, Yves Detrey; 48 points.
3. Groupama sailing team (FRA) Franck Cammas, Sophie de Turckheim, Tanguy Cariou, Thierry Fouchier, Devan Le Bihan; 48 points.
4. Emirates Team New Zealand (NZL) Dean Barker, Glenn Ashby, James Dagg, Jeremy Lomas, Edwin Delaat; 46 points.
5. J.P. Morgan BAR (GBR) Ben Ainslie, Nick Hutton, Paul Goodison, Pippa Wilson, Matt Cornwell; 44 points.
6. Red Bull Sailing Team (AUT) Roman Hagara, Hans-Peter Steinacher, Mark Bulkeley, Nick Blackman, Haylee Outteridge; 43 points.
7. SAP Extreme Sailing Team (DEN) Jes Gram-Hansen, Rasmus Køstner, Thierry Douillard, Peter Wibroe, Nicolai Sehested; 39 points.
8. Oman Air (OMA) Rob Greenhalgh, Tom Johnson, Will Howden, Hashim Al Rashdi, Musab Al Hadi; 38 points.
9. The Wave, Muscat (OMA) Leigh McMillan, Sarah Ayton, Pete Greenhalgh, Kinley Fowler, Nasser Al Mashari; 29 points.
10. Gazprom Team Russia (RUS) Igor Lisovenko, Paul Campbell-James, Alister Richardson, Pete Cumming, Aleksey Kulakov; 28 points.
11. GAC Pindar (AUS) Seve Jarvin, Troy Tindill, Ed Smyth, Sam Newton, Alexandra South; 20 points.
12. Team Aberdeen Singapore (SIN) Nick Moloney, Adam Beashel, Scott Glen Sydney, Tom Dawson, Justin Wong; 17 points.

Results: http://www.extremesailingseries.com/results