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Fuente info Extreme Sailing Series
21st July 2011
Extreme Sailing Series™ Comes To Cowes
In brief:
- The award-winning Extreme Sailing Series™ once again comes to Cowes as one of the highlights of Aberdeen Asset Management Cowes Week.
- Despite the unnecessary clash of dates with the first America’s Cup World Series event in Cascais, all 11 series teams will be present including Emirates Team New Zealand and Artemis Racing, with a top class line up of sailors from 15 nations with participation in 30 Olympic Games and 82 World Championships between them.
- A new team backed by Aberdeen Asset Management will be headed up by British Olympic 49er sailors Pink and Peacock.
- The Extreme Sailing Series™: the innovators of ‘stadium sailing’.
In detail:
For the fifth consecutive year, the Solent 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 nationalities, will line up on 6 August for seven days of high-octane ‘stadium sailing’ action the circuit has become renowned for.
The fleet of 48 top professional sailors have amongst them competed at 30 Olympic Games. In addition there are 82 World Championship titles amongst the fleet, 57 Records Broken or Held 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 unnecessary decision of America’s Cup Event Authority to choose the same dates for the ACWS event in Cascais as not just the Extreme Sailing Series, but Cowes Week and the pre-Olympic regatta in Weymouth too. Artemis Racing will bring back their skipper from Act 2 in Qingdao, double Olympic bronze medalist, Santi Lange from Argentina…….. No-one expects these teams to be any 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. Pink, who will be racing for Scotland, said, “I was proud to be asked to take the helm of Aberdeen’s first Extreme 40 entry as they are incredibly exciting both to sail and to watch and I look forward to hopefully bringing home success for Aberdeen at Cowes.”
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.
Britain’s Leigh McMillan, who skippers The Wave, Muscat, will be looking to capitalize on their first podium position in Boston when the team came third. Leigh McMillan, Skipper of The Wave, Muscat 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.
2010 Extreme Sailing Series champion, Paul Campbell-James, will be back again in Cowes helming for Max Sirena’s Italian team Luna Rossa. CJ’s introduction to Extreme sailing was back in 2008 when as stand in for Shirley Robertson, he pitchpoled ‘J.P. Morgan Asset Management’ on a memorable day of action in Cowes.
And Pete Cumming, skipper of 2009 winning team ‘Oman Sail Masirah’ will also rejoin the sailors in Cowes, onboard 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.
