UAE Wooden Powerboat Championships 2011 - Round 2

by Sharon Allison on 17 Feb 2011 UAE Wooden Powerboat Championship 2011

Ahmed Hassan Al Suwaidi and Salem Fadhel Al Hamli took first place on the podium after Extreme Marine won the second round of UAE Wooden Powerboat Championship held at Dubai International Marine Club. They led the fleet for the entire race, managing to increase their lead in each of the nine laps. Toll Global took second place with Saeed Obeid Khalifa Al Muhairi and Mohammad Hamad Al Ghashish followed by Raheeb 2 in third place driven by Jasem Hamad Al Dakheel & Abdul Aziz Khalid Al Suleiman.

‘Conditions were perfect today for the race,’ said winning driver Ahmed Al Suwaidi. ‘I felt confident at the start of the race and it went really well. I’m very happy with this win.’

The race wasn’t all smooth however, the first start was abandoned and Race Officer, Mohammed Hareb was forced to take the fleet around one lap to restart.

‘Some of the boats were pushing in front,’ said Hareb. ‘ The fleet was spread out, which is good for safety, but some boats would have had an unfair advantage as they were so far in front, so I took them around for a re-start. On the second start I had to penalise three boats for jumpstarting, but I let it continue. And they paid the price with penalties. We had one small incident with a driver overboard who turned out to be fine but his teammate got a few scratches in the commotion, apart from that the race went very well.’

Extreme Marine competed today for the first time this season due to gear failure in the first round in Abu Dhabi last month. They finished in today in 36 minutes with an average speed of 88kph powered by its two 90h engines and was followed for eight laps by the first round winner, Delma Marine with Mohammed Mohsen Ali and Ahmed Bin Thiban, who they were struck down with engine problems in the final lap and finally they limped across the finish line in a disappointing 14th place.

Round 3 of the Championship will be held in Mina Seyahi at 11am on Saturday 19th February with round 4 in Abu Dhabi on April 1st and the final will be held at DIMC on 23rd April.

Results:
1st. 11, Extreme Marine, Salem Fadhel Al Hamli & Ahmed Al Suwaidi
2nd.10, Toll Global, Saeed Obeid Khalifa Al Muhairi & Mohammad Hamad Al Ghashish
3rd. 7, Raheeb 1, Jasem Hamad Al Dakheel & Abdul Aziz Khaled Al Suleiman
4th. Raheeb 2, Abdullatif Mohamed Al Omani & Adel Zaid Al Misfer
5th. 2, Mohamed Suhail Khalfan & Khamis Al Qubaisi

DIMC website