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THE QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER OF OMAN SAIL
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2. EXTREME 40’s- iShares Cup With one event left, Oman has become the name to beat – Masirah, representing Oman goes into the final event in Spain in joint 1st place.
6. MAJAN, THE ARABIAN 100 Nigel Irens has a reputation for designing world-beating boats and Oman Sail’s flagship, Majan, is no exception.
12. MUSANDAM A full refit and three new Omani sailors sees her ready to take on her new schedule.
14. OMAN SAIL ACADEMY With the arrival of the new training director, Neil Coxon, at the end of Ramadan, the Oman Sail academy is now fully up and running
20. CLIPPER RACE Sailing non-stop around the world is not only intensely grueling for all hands, but also for the sailing boat.
22. THE JEWEL OF MUSCAT The Jewel of Muscat project is an historical and cultural initiative by Oman as a gift for the Government of Singapore.
24. LOOKING AHEAD See what lies ahead and our plans to make even more waves!
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Welcome This quarter has been packed with activity. October 2009 sees our first school group from Muscat begin their sailing lessons at the Oman Sail Academy where our knowledgeable, and inspirational, Omani Instructors will be teaching the children. This is a milestone as these activities will be the bedrock of our future achievements. It makes the hard work and recruitment drive of the last quarter worthwhile.
is highly qualified to train and race with our Omani trainees: he has 5 round the world races, 17 Fastnet races, 4 Sydney to Hobart Races and 16 Atlantic crossings under his belt! The three Omanis who will join Paul in October for a full programme will return as experienced yachtsmen. We will be naming the boat in October and it will go straight into a tour of Arabia before the end of 2009.
The second intake of trainees have taken to their schedules with infectious enthusiasm. They have a grueling programme having sailed, more or less, every day for the last three months and training in the gym four days a week. It is all worth it as they are fit, young, athletes who have now selected their sailing careers in Offshore Racing, Inshore Racing, Dinghy Racing or as Academy Instructors. We now have a team that has what it takes to succeed.
Mohsin has now moved off our iconic trimaran (Musandam) in which he sailed round the globe non-stop, to make way for his colleagues. The boat has undergone a major refit and three Omanis will take to the seas midOctober. Guiding their hand on the boat is the massively experienced French yachtsman Loik Gallon.
The new A100, Majan, assembled in Salalah, was craned into the water in August and has been through tough sea trials, in the perfect conditions of big waves and stiff breezes, off the Dhofar coast. She is an amazing craft, ready to take on the world’s oceans, and will no doubt make Oman proud for years to come. The newly appointed skipper, Paul Stanbridge,
Finally a mention for our teams racing on the Extreme 40s. They are really putting Oman on the map and currently sit in joint first and third position overall with only one event to go, nail biting stuff!
David Graham Chief Executive Officer
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Extreme 40’siShares Cup
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Two Oman Sail boats, Masirah and Renaissance, have been competing in the iShares Cup Extreme 40 Sailing Series across six European destinations since May this year. Ten state-of-the-art multihulls race on short, demanding courses right in front of the shore line giving the public full access to the action and putting Oman in the limelight. With one event left, Oman has become the name to beat – Masirah, representing Oman goes into the final event in Spain in joint 1st place. Only one point adrift, Renaissance, sponsored by Renaissance Services, Suhail Bahwan Group and The Wave, will start Spain in 3rd place. The overall winner will now come down to the last event: it could not be closer!
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Extreme 40’s- iShares Cup
In the last month, Nasser Al Mashari (pictured, right) has joined the Extreme 40 squad and is being put through his paces with Khamis Al Anbouri. By the end of the season they will be ready to take their spots as full crew members onboard Oman’s Extreme 40s competing in the winter sailing series in Asia. After two accidents in Amsterdam, the Oman Sail boat builder, Ian McCabe (pictured, bottom right) has also been showing the team how critical qualified boat builders are to the project: he spent 72 hours non-
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stop repairing damaged hulls and ensuring Oman’s podium hopes are kept alive. The circuit has also caused waves on the shore line this last quarter as Oman Sail’s Nawal Al-Hasni hosted Nick Fry, CEO of the Brawn GP Formula 1 team during the Cowes event in the UK and the Ministry of Tourism also used the opportunity of an Oman backdrop on European waters to host key travel journalists during the events in both France and Germany.
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“Hopes are kept alive as Ian McCabe repairs damaged hulls in 72 hours non- stop”
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The A100 is the new Arabian 100 class. One phone call, one meeting at the Extreme 40 iShares Cup event in Cowes and Paul Standbridge was at Terminal 3 and heading to join Oman Sail, recruited to skipper Oman Sail’s flag ship Arabian 100; a Nigel Irens designed 105ft trimaran.
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“In the short time that I have been with the team I have come to realise it is a mixture of Omanis and multi-national professionals who are working to a common goal of teaching Omanis to sail and putting Oman on the maritime global map. After only a month in Oman, I have warmed to the friendly people, their culture, history and their land.� Paul Standbridge, skipper of Majan, the first A100.
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“designed as a high performance record breaker”
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Majan, The Arabian 100
Nigel Irens has a reputation for designing world-beating boats and Oman Sail’s flagship, Majan, is no exception. Majan, designed as a high performance record breaker, is also an ideal safe and reliable platform for us to train Omanis to the highest level of offshore racing. The last month has seen Paul and his team, including Mohsin Al Busaidi, (pictured, helming Majan left) do critical sea trials off the coast of Salalah during the tail end of the kareef (monsoon) winds. Majan will now sail with a crew of six: three Omani offshore trainees and three international professional crew providing the one-on-one training that the recruits require at this early stage of their career.
As well as completing the sea trials, Paul is also busy writing a sailing manual for the boat as well as a detailed training programme for the new recruits who have now returned to Oman from their training course at Rockley, UK over the summer. Most of the training will be practical and some classroom: learning navigation, boat maintenance and, of course, sailing skills.
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Majan, The Arabian 100
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Since skipper Loik Gallon and his crew (including Mohsin for the first two months) have been working on Musandam to ensure she remains a premier racing trimaran. Musandam has spent the last three months in a planned refit: all her running and standing rigging have been changed, a new engine was fitted, batteries were changed and alterations were made to her deck layout and below decks to accommodate more sailors on board. The modifications are now complete and Loik will begin a full training programme on the 13th October with his crew comprising Nick Hooch (who also sailed round the world with Mohsin and Loik in March) Nick Black, and three new Omani recruits selected for the offshore stream. Tristan Tucker, who joined the team in September has also recently joined the team and is Musandam’s new shore manager.
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Oman Sail Academy
With the arrival of the new training director, Neil Coxon, at the end of Ramadan, the Oman Sail academy is now fully up and running and concentrating on bringing sailing to the community. Before he even started unpacking, Neil had already set up the first free Try Sailing session and from the 16th October, sixteen children from the Sultan’s School will commence the first six week programme. The beginner’s course will ensure that all the participants will be able to sail unaided in light to moderate conditions. From this, the students will then choose the direction to take their sailing, from mastering seamanship skills to embarking on a racing career.
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Oman Sail Academy
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“from mastering seamanship skills to embarking on a racing career”
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“The beginner’s course will ensure that all the participants will be able to sail unaided in light to moderate conditions”
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Oman Sail Academy
Neil has an impressive background having managed the world’s largest sailing school for eight years and is now concentrating on producing an Oman Sail training syllabus and setting up further Try Sailing courses with other schools across Muscat.
Please contact Neil (neil@omansail.com) if you know of a school that would be interested in joining Oman Sail’s Try Sailing programme.
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“It is an incredible honour to represent Oman in the Clipper Race” Ahmed Al Ma'amari
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Clipper Race
Two Oman Sail recruits, Abdullah Al Busaidi and Ahmed Al Maamari, joined nearly three hundred other offshore novices on September 13th as they set out on the first leg of the Clipper round the world race. A special thanks goes to Renaissance Services SAOG who have kindly made this trip of a lifetime possible for both recruits and also equipping them with vital offshore knowledge that will be invaluable to Oman Sail on their return. Abdullah was assigned to the Qingdao boat while Ahmed will be representing Oman on the Singapore yacht.
“It is an incredible honour to represent Oman in the Clipper Race” Ahmed explained to journalists at the departure from Hull, UK “ My family have flown to the UK to see me off and it is going to be hard to be away from them for the year. My only aim is to ensure that Oman, Singapore and my family are all proud of me.”
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The Jewel of Muscat project is an historical and cultural initiative by Oman as part of the drive to reignite Oman’s maritime heritage and a gift for the Government of Singapore. It involves the reconstruction of a 9th-century sewn-plank boat on the beach of Qantab village, just outside Muscat, similar to that of a wreck discovered in 1998 off Indonesia with more than 60,000 pieces of Chinese Tang dynasty ceramics, gold and silver. The Jewel of Muscat will set sail from Muscat in February 2010, captained by Oman Sail instructor Saleh Al Jabri (pictured, left) and retrace the ancient trade routes across the Indian Ocean as those described by Arab geographers and navigators, arriving in Singapore in July where she will then be housed in the Sentosa museum along with the Tang Treasure from 2011. Further information and educational material for schools can be found on the project website: http://jewelofmuscat.tv/
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Looking Ahead To The Next Quarter THE TRIMARANS Majan, the A100, and flagship of the Oman Sail fleet, will complete her sea trials off the coast of Salalah in October. From there she will embark on the first of her ambassadorial roles as she goes on a tour of Gulf States prior to competing in the DubaiMuscat race at the end of November. Musandam will shortly be heading down to Salalah to join the A100 before joining her for the Winter 2010 programme. After sea trials to ensure all the new updates are working well, five trainees will take it in shifts to sail on board with short and long phases. Short phases will last up to four days at sea but the long phases could see them doing longer courses in the Indian Ocean.
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EXTREME 40’s The finale of the iShares Cup will be held in Almeria, Spain from 10-12th October. After that, both boats will be competing in the winter circuit, watch this space…… OMAN SAIL ACADEMY In the next quarter, the Academy will concentrate on the development of more Omani instructors and Try Sailing opportunities for more young Omanis and schools across Muscat. The team will also be developing a training syllabus that will be internationally recognized with the sport’s governing body, ISAF in 2010.
CLIPPER 09-10 ROUND THE WORLD YACHT RACE Ahmed and Abdullah will arrive in Rio de Janerio in mid-October and after a two-week resupply, they will then head to Cape Town on the second leg of their Round the World Race. They are expected in Cape Town on or around the 14th-16th November. THE JEWEL OF MUSCAT Following her launch in October, Saleh will spend the rest of the year preparing the boat and his crew for her epic voyage from Muscat to Singapore in February 2010.
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Oman Sail is Making Waves Follow Oman Sail daily updates on: www.omansail.com You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
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