By Sports Reporter/Doha


A thrilling day on the water in Doha for the final four in-port races of the EFG Sailing Arabia – The Tour, resulted in three more race wins for Sidney Gavignet and team on EFG Bank (Monaco).
The in-port racing yesterday showed how Oman Sail’s fleet of identical one-design Farr 30s encourages healthy competition. The racing was so close with the difference between winning and losing depending completely on the skill of the crew. After the epic Leg 5, from Abu Dhabi to Doha, which saw teams battle against relentless strong headwinds for 30 plus hours, today’s calm conditions in flat water, just off the Four Seasons Murjan Marina Doha base, was welcome relief for the 10 teams.
Gavignet and team sailed an impressive series and managed to emerge from every race in a podium position.
They won three of the four races and are now in a strong overall winning position going into today’s start of the final leg. Commenting on his in-port race success, Gavignet said: “The key today was making good manoeuvres and few mistakes, which was where we scored well.”
By winning race three, Zain Sailing Team (Kuwait) led by seasoned Tour competitor Cedric Pouligny with Gerald Veniard on navigation were the only team to prevent Gavignet’s total domination. Zain eventually finished fifth overall. In second place overall with a consistent scoreline of three second places were the seasoned young student team from Plymouth on Team Averda skippered by Marcel Herrera. Like Team EFG Bank (Monaco) they sailed smart and were always in contention.
Herrera commented: “Really enjoyable day and great racing plus we were able to take our sponsors – averda – out sailing as our special guests, which was fun too. It is always good to have such close racing, particularly with EFG Bank because they are always spot on.”
Notable for their impressive performance at this event is Team Bienne Voile skippered by Lorenz Müller from Switzerland. They finished third overall. Müller commented: “We feel more comfortable with inshore races because that is what we are used to. We had a great day, good starts, and my son Emanuel was spot on with the tactics, so we are very happy.”
Mary Rook and the all-girl team on Al Thuraya (Oman) were always in contention and made some good decisions in the shifty conditions. They always emerged in the top rank and finished the day in fourth place. Lauren Eatwell enthused: “We really enjoyed it today, it was great sailing as far as we are concerned. We love this sort of racing because we have good team work, and in light winds we have a slight advantage because we have less weight on board.”

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