ADIMSC hosts Round Three Volvo SB3 Middle East GP

by Russell Burns on 9 Jan 2008 After the initial butterflies of Round One at Dubai Offshore Sailing Club, and the new horizons we all explored at Al Hamra Village for Round Two it was certainly down to business for all crews when the fleet tied up to the pontoons at the Abu Dhabi International Marine Sports Club to compete in Round Three of this six round series.

There were some new faces in the crowd, with two Abu Dhabi based teams joining the fray for the weekends racing, keen on showing the interlopers from Dubai a thing or two about the local conditions in the coming six races. The British Club entered a top flight team, skippered by experienced competitive yachtsman Barry Jarman, whilst the hosts Abu Dhabi International Marine Sports Club put together a youth dominated crew, with their youth sailing coach skippering their highly competitive entry.

Racing for Day One was held inshore in the lee of Lulu Island, and with a tight course set there was no room for error. Team Laser Middle East was the surprise act of the day, leaping from the pack with two bullets, whilst the rest of the pack fought for every position and traded the odd protest in the process. It seemed the tight courses were pushing everyone to the limit with the first general recall of the Series in Race Three, though this may have just been the fleet’s enthusiasm to make for the beach bar at the Abu Dhabi Hilton, our accommodation providers and nearest watering hole for the weekend.

Day Two saw the racing taken outside of Lulu Island in the calm waters of the Arabian Gulf and it was obvious from the outset that Team Premier Composites had taken a long hard look at their first days performance (2, 5, 8) and were looking to improve… knocking out a dominant two bullets in Races 4 and 5 and a 2nd in Race 6. Team MenOnPause, the Grand Prix Leaders heading into Round Three, struggled to find consistent winning form with (3,1,4,5,5,5) for the weekend… having several encounters on the course with Grand Prix new comers Team ADIMSC who ended the weekend tied with them for third on 18 points after a controversial visit to ‘The Room’ at the conclusion of Day Two. All in all though it was still not enough to hold out the consistent improvement of Team Laser, who walked away with victory in Round Three.

The inspired performance of the weekend has to go to Team MarineTech, skippered by Gareth Owen, on Jafetica, bouncing back from a lack lustre weekend on the water in Ras Al Khaimah during Round Two to place fifth at the conclusion of racing…

The weekend’s results see the battle for the coveted Grand Prix Trophy and the winner’s prize of a trip to Dublin to compete at the Laser SB3 2008 World Championships heating up… Team Premier Composites lead the Grand Prix overall on five points, Team MenOnPause are hanging tough in second with a total of six points, whilst Team Laser follows on eleven. Team DeVere Racing are battling it out with fourteen points, with Petite Tazo on fifteen rounding out the top five. One can only imagine that we will see the intensity raised another notch when the teams head to Muscat for Round Four on the 25th and 26th January 2008.