Traditional 43ft Dhows at Dubai International Marine Club
by Sharon Allison 16 Nov 2009 07:44 GMT
14 November 2009
Success for Maqasas
Traditional 43ft Dhow Sailing Championships Heat 2: Khalid M. R. Al Rumaithi skippering Maqasas gained victory for the second time in as many heats in the 43 ft class Championship ahead of Seda’a and Al Embratore. The racecourse was eighteen nautical miles long and took two hours for the winner to cross the line. The fourteen-man crew took their first place in front of a huge one hundred-boat fleet.
‘The race was fun, long and fast,’ said Khalid M. R. Al Rumaithi. ‘We had to go in several different directions as the wind was quite tricky at the start, but we chose to go close to the coast and it was the right decision.’ Seda’a, skippered by Mohammed Rashid Bin Shaheen, moved up one place from his last round second place and a surprise third for outsider Mohammed Suhail Khalfan Al Muhairi on Al Embratore.
Organizers, Dubai International Marine Club invited spectators to join them to watch the race up close from on board spectator boats to see the action and involve the local community.
‘Today was a mix between traditional and modern,’ Saeed Harib, Managing Director of DIMC, told the spectators, ‘the race started at the Palm Deira, passed Dubai Dry Dock, Burj Dubai, Burj Al Arab, and World Islands, Palm Jumeirah and finished in front of the Fattan Towers,’ and added, ‘as the towers on the land increase so will the masts of the traditional boats on the sea.’
The next heat will be during the Sea Dubai Watersports Festival on Friday 4th December. The Festival starts with the Sea Dubai RC44 Gold Cup 25 – 29 November.