Extreme Sailing Series - Oman Sail's Extreme 40s claim 2 podium spots

by Oman Sail on 13 Sep 2014 If Oman Sail’s Extreme 40 teams The Wave, Muscat and Oman Air could pack up the Istanbul racetrack and stash it away in their kitbags, they surely would, after a blistering day that saw them claim two of the three podium places on the Extreme Sailing Series Act 6 leaderboard.

Both teams enjoyed some fine performances on the second day of the Extreme Sailing Series with Leigh McMillan and his crew on The Wave, Muscat mixing back to back wins with some more modest results and Rob Greenhalgh’s Oman Air posting an impressive string of podium places in their most improved day of the season so far.

By the end, Greenhalgh and his crew of Ted Hackney, Kyle Langford, Hashim Al Rashdi and Musab Al Hadi had jumped a whopping four places on the leaderboard to third while The Wave, Muscat shrugged off Emirates Team New Zealand as co-leaders to take sole occupancy of the summit, establishing a slim three point lead.

'It was good today,' said a delighted Greenhalgh who has predicted from the outset that Oman Air would be competing for podium places once they had formed a team bond.

'We have improved our boat speed and finding our feet has taken a bit of time. These things don’t happen overnight but now I think as a team, we are more in tune with each other so our manoeuvres are getting better.

'Everyone is working together well and enjoying it and the results are getting better.'

Like Greenhalgh, Musab Al Hadi came off the water at the end of the 15th race with a smile on his face.

'Yesterday was long and tough and our communication wasn’t as good as we would have liked but we talked about it and worked it out so came back and had a very good consistent day today,' he said.

'We are now third overall and having a really good battle with The Wave, Muscat which is fun. There are still a couple of days left and we are looking forward to it.'

It was too early to predict where they will end up at the close of racing on Sunday but Greenhalgh was confident the result at Istanbul would accurately reflect their performance.

'We will just try to carry on making progress,' he said. 'Our progress has not been reflected in our results at events so far this year but here, hopefully it will be.'

McMillan paid tribute to his own team on The Wave, Muscat but said Oman Air had been the form boat today.

'It was fantastic to see Oman Air having such a great day,' he said. 'They won the day and have shown they are getting stronger and stronger.

'We all sailed really well and although we made a few mistakes we made some good decisions. We did not maximise our opportunities completely so have still got a lot of work to do.'

'We did the simple things well,' double-Olympic Gold medallist and The Wave tactician, Sarah Ayton, added.

'I keep hearing people say ‘it’s never over until it’s over’ which is a real sign that the teams are getting better and better so we are expecting the racing to get tighter and more intense in the remaining races.'

On Saturday, the fleet will once again race near the shore in the Bosphorus and the event is open to the public, with two days of Stadium Racing. Live video starts from 1530 local time (GMT+3).