26 July 2011 -
EXTREME SAILING
SERIES™.COMES TO COWES
For the fifth consecutive year,
the waters off Cowes will once again play host to the only UK stop on the
global nine-event Extreme Sailing Series™. Twelve Extreme 40 catamarans, with
world-renowned sailors from 15 nations, will line up on 6 August for seven days
of high-octane ‘stadium sailing’ action the circuit has become renowned for.
With 48 top professional
sailors who have amongst them competed at 30 Olympic Games there is sure to be
some close fought battles. In addition there are 82 World Championship titles
amongst the competitors making it the strongest ever line-up seen in the five
year history of the circuit.
Emirates Team New Zealand
and Artemis Racing will be present despite the decision of the America’s Cup
Event Authority to choose the same dates for the ACWS
event in Cascais, Portugal. Of course
the regular races of Aberdeen Asset Management Cowes Week and the pre-Olympic
regatta in Weymouth are taking place at this time too. Artemis Racing will
bring back their skipper from Act 2 in Qingdao, double Olympic bronze
medallist, Santi Lange from Argentina and everyone expects these teams to be no
less competitive than in Boston and Istanbul where it came down to the final
race.
Aberdeen Asset Management,
the new sponsor of Cowes Week which forms the backdrop to Act 5, has announced
its own entry skippered by British Olympic 49er class contender John Pink,
joined by his regular 49er crew Rick Peacock.
French entry Groupe Edmond
de Rothschild, currently lying third, will be looking to regain their top spot
on the overall podium having lost it following a disappointing 5th place at the
last event in Boston.
Home crowds in Cowes will
have plenty of Brits to support. Britain’s Team GAC
Pindar, will be hoping to continue improving and skipper Ian Williams is fresh
from a second World Match Racing Tour victory in Sweden.
Island born, Leigh
McMillan, who learned to sail on Newtown Creek and who skippers The Wave,
Muscat, will be looking to capitalise on their first podium position in Boston
when the team came third. Leigh commented, “Last
year in Cowes we had some insane conditions, blowing 20 to 25 knots on some
days. So we are prepared for something similar again this year. Seven days of
racing will probably be the hardest sailing we will do this year but I’m
thrilled to be sailing again in front of the crowds.” McMillan is
on particularly strong form at the moment: he left the last Act in Boston and
flew straight to France where he won the fifth leg of the Tour de France à la
Voile.
Pete Cumming, skipper of
2009 winning team ‘Oman Sail Masirah’ will also rejoin the sailors in Cowes, on
board Niceforyou, one of two Italian teams on the circuit.
With twelve teams on the
starting grid, the race courses will feel smaller than ever as the Extreme
Sailing Series™ 2011 reaches the half way point of the 2011 global circuit.