(MENAFN- Muscat Daily) Oman Sail teams, The Wave, Muscat and Oman Air, came up with encouraging display on the penultimate day in Act 4 of the 2014 Extreme Sailing Series (ESS) in St Petersburg on Saturday, setting themselves up for podium spots on the final day on Sunday.
On a day involving ten races and 12 teams, the Oman Sail teams had seven podium places, though they failed to finish on top in any of them. Defending champion The Wave, Muscat produced seven fourth-place finishes to end the day 12 points behind leader Alinghi of Switzerland (117 points).
Rob Greenhalgh's Oman Air rose three places on the leaderboard after posting three second-place results to finish in sixth place with 76 points. Looking ahead to Sunday's action, Leigh McMillan, The Wave, Muscat's skipper, said, "We are sailing really well, but the last race [in which we finished last] nailed us.''
He added, ''It is still close enough, but it would have been nice to be level with Alinghi going into the last day. If we can get a good start in the first race tomorrow, there is everything to play for. Two good races and it will be very exciting. It could even be a photo-finish.''
Greenhalgh was happy with the team's performance, saying, ''We felt before today that we were perhaps not in the mix. But today, we started well and we picked our way through the fleet.''
Standings (after day four):
1 Alinghi (117 pts), 2 The Wave, Muscat (105), Emirates New Zealand (93), J P Morgan BAR (85), SAP Extreme Sailing Team (83), Oman Air (76), Gazprom Team Russia (75), Real Team (72), Red Bull Sailing Team (69), GAC Pindar (61), Groupama Sailing Team (54), Russian First (19)
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