Danish Team complete Act 1 Line-Up starting tomorrow

by Extreme Sailing Series 27 Feb 2012 16:50 GMT 28 February - 2 March 2012

Rasmus Kostner, Team Trifork co-skipper and tactician © Extreme Sailing Series

Fighting talk on the dockside, find out what the sailors expectations are ahead of the first day of racing for 2012

A new team in the form of Team Trifork from Denmark can finally be unveiled today as the 8th team in the starting blocks for the first Act of the Extreme Sailing Series™ 2012 in Muscat, Oman. The team will be co-skippered by Jes Gram-Hansen on helm and Rasmus Kostner, tactician, who both come from a World Match Racing Tour and America’s Cup background, alongside the youngest member of the team, 26-year-old Jonas Hviid-Nielsen on bow combined with the Extreme 40 race experience of Pete Cummings (skipper of the winning Extreme 40 team in 2009) and Simon Hiscocks from the UK. It has been a long journey for the Danish team that began a year ago as Jes Gram-Hansen explained: “Rasmus and myself went into different sailing programmes like RC44 and Farr 40 after the 32nd America’s Cup in Valencia but all the time our dream was to create our own team. We analysed what kind of circuit would be the one to go with, and with the changes to the America’s Cup and the Extreme Sailing Series being more and more the series to be in, we decided to try and build a team for the Extreme Sailing Series. So we invested all our money into buying a boat a year ago and then we spent most of the year in Denmark taking out business people from companies to show them what we love and what we think would be a good way to be involved in the project. We have long-support from Trifork (a software company) which we have in been a good relationship over the years along with our clothing partner, Simon Spurr, to help get us here to the start line in Muscat.”

The team’s expectations are as you would expect for the ‘newbies’ to the tour: “We have a lot of respect for the guys who have been on the tour and some of them have sailed multihulls for a long time,” continued Jens. “We’re here to learn and I’m sure we will make some mistakes but we’ve got two great English guys with us, Simon Hiscocks and Pete Cummings, so, hopefully, they will keep us out of trouble! Hopefully, we’ll improve over the season with a longer term goal of overall victory in a couple of years time.”

After various stints of team training up the Omani coast at Massanah, the racing starts for real tomorrow, Tuesday, 28th February, in Muscat. The live race coverage will start at 1130 GMT on Wednesday (29th Feb), streaming on Thursday (1st March) and Friday (2nd March). Glamour conditions expected and the sailors are talking it up on the dockside…

Roman Hagara, skipper, Red Bull Sailing Team:
“We’re starting with a new team here with 2 new crew members – new bowman, Graham Spence from Australia and an amateur sailor from France, Pierre, sailing as our 5th sailor for this event – so we’re looking forward it. We did some good training in Massanah and we’re ready for the first Act. We’ve capsized here before on the Asia Tour (09/10) then last year we made it to the podium. Our goal here is to make to the podium again.”

Morgan Larson, skipper, Oman Air:
“We’re looking forward to having some fun with the new team and doing really well. We’ve gelled really well with Will, Charlie, Nasser and Max so I think we’ve got a really good team. The competition is the highest it’s been in a while I think but I think we’ve got some great sailors on board and we’re expecting to be up at the front every race!”

Leigh McMillan, skipper, The Wave, Muscat:
“I think we’re in pretty good shape and we’ve done some good training races but we haven’t raced in anger against any of these guys yet. We hope to get on the podium and start the season well. I think on paper Groupe Edmond de Rothschild maybe favourites but we hope that by the time we get to the end of the season we’ll be challenging for overall victory.”

Loick Peyron, helmsman, ZouLou:
“I’m happy to be back here after a couple of years… We are here with a new team, good friends, good sailors although we have not raced together and we have only trained for 3 days which is not nearly enough. But the game is so interesting and so exciting, and I think it will be more ‘open’ than last year. We will be quite safe – I am fast but not furious!

Tanguy Cariou, Tactician, Alinghi:
“We all know the stadium racing is a very different game and we will have some good races and some bad ones! We made two training sessions with Ernesto in Massanah. I would say it is a new boat for him, a new format but we are used to sailing together on the D35 on the lake. There are new faces, new people and not all the teams have had the same level of training – I’m pretty sure that in Qingdao and Istanbul the strong teams will emerge but for the first event I’m not so sure, it’s a shakedown.”

www.extremesailingseries.com

Edmond de Rothschild Group is back on the hunt for the Extreme Sailing Series title (from Kate Jennings, Edmond de Rothschild Group)

For the second year running, the Extreme Sailing Series is kicking off its world tour in the Sultanate of Oman. Tomorrow, Tuesday 28 February, the start of the 2012 season will begin offshore of The Wave Muscat marina. For four days, Pierre Pennec and his men on Edmond de Rothschild Group will pit themselves against the seven other crews. This initial confrontation will enable them to size each other up against some fresh competition, though the catamaran fitted out by Baron Benjamin de Rothschild has also undergone some changes for its fourth season on the circuit.

Though the racing has been shortened by a day, the competition format for the Extreme Sailing Series remains unchanged for this new season. In this way, from tomorrow the Oman Grand Prix will kick off with some so-called “Open Water” races, where the classic courses will be run just a stone’s throw from the shore. This warm-up day will allow the crews to find their bearings before entering the arena for real the next day. Indeed, over the course of the following three days, the emphasis will be on the races contested in the marine stadium provided by The Wave Muscat site. It’s a playing field which the crew of Edmond de Rothschild Group has some very fond memories of, as skipper Pierre Pennec recalls: “We’re delighted that the season is kicking off in Oman once again. The whole team has excellent memories of this leg. The sailing conditions and the competition site are perfect: a fine breeze, which guarantees a great show and enables us to get the very best from our steeds, along with the sun and the heat whilst France is in the depths of winter. The Oman Grand Prix 2011 was my first meeting as skipper/ helm of the Extreme 40 Edmond de Rothschild Group. It resulted in a victory against crews of international renown, so naturally we have very fond memories of what was a very emotional time.”

Second in the Extreme Sailing Series and winners of two Grands Prix – including that in Oman - in 2011, Pierre Pennec and his crew fully intend to add some fresh entries to Gitana Team’s list of achievements this season. Their assets will doubtless be their respective experiences and their versatility, though it’s as a team that they will have to try to find the right alchemy to achieve the level of consistency which is essential for securing the title. “It’s with great delight that the crew of Edmond de Rothschild Group is returning to the Extreme Sailing Series. Our second place in the 2011 championship, even though it was a very good result, left us with a sense of unfinished business and we’re returning with every intention of climbing the extra step that separates us from victory. Though we have a solid base to rely on, particularly as regards our knowledge of the circuit and the format of the races, nothing is set in stone and we have to start again from scratch each year”, concluded Pierre Pennec.

Some new additions to the 2012 crew

With half the crew replaced, the men on the catamaran fitted out by Baron Benjamin de Rothschild are back on the hunt for the Extreme Sailing Series title. In this way, Bernard Labro and Jean-Christophe Mourniac have joined Pierre Pennec and Hervé Cunningham, who together form one of the most experienced crews on the circuit.

The 2012 season marks the arrival of some fresh faces aboard the French one-design in the colours of Edmond de Rothschild Group. Bernard Labro, an America’s Cup specialist and foredeck expert on a wide range of craft, is taking up the position of bowman in the Gitana Team. He’ll replace Hervé Cunningham, who now fills the role of headsail trimmer. A newcomer aboard the boat, but a very familiar face on the circuit, Jean-Christophe Mourniac (better known as “Kinou”) will be responsible for working the traveller. He replaces Christophe Espagnon, who is now involved with the latest Gitana craft, the MOD 70 Edmond de Rothschild Group skippered by Sébastien Josse.

For the first Grand Prix of the season, the Extreme Sailing Series’ organisers also wished to introduce a new rule, bringing the set number of crew aboard the Extreme 40s to five. As such, Adeline Chatenet, a physiotherapist by profession, is embarking aboard Edmond de Rothschild Group. At the end of the races contested in Oman, we’ll find out if this experiment has borne fruit and will be carried on in the seven other events which make up the 2012 circuit.

Of note is the fact that Thierry Peponnet, double Olympic 470 medallist (gold in 1988 in Seoul and bronze in 1984 in Los Angeles), is working alongside them as sports coach.

The crew of Edmond de Rothschild Group: