(MENAFN- Muscat Daily) Oman Sail's Sultanate of Oman overcame fickle winds to climb to the top of leaderboard at the halfway stage of the opening event of the 2015 Bullitt GC32 Racing Tour at Lake Traunsee Austria on Friday.
Nestled among the snow-capped Salzkammergut mountains the Austrian lake provided a perfect setting for the event but with winds blowing at less than ten knots only five races could be completed on Friday which was enough for Leigh McMillan skipper of Sultanate of Oman and his crew to go six points ahead of second-placed Alinghi of Switzerland.
At the start of the day the two old Extreme Sailing Series rivals - Alinghi and Sultanate of Oman - were tied in the top spot. But McMillan's team maintained consistency and with no results off the podium after nine races it edged its rival for the leader's spot.
Sultanate of Oman's America's Cup sailor Alister Richardson who is a foiling expert after racing AC45s for Italian team Luna Rossa put down the lead to teamwork.
He said 'We all know each other well and although this is the first time we are racing together as a group we work well as a team. If you know each other well you don't have to talk much.
'Obviously we are not happy all the time with our manoeuvres but we are not getting frustrated just trying to stay relaxed while always learning and trying to improve. The key today was to stay calm and not chase what the other boats were doing.'
Oman's Nasser al Mashari Sultanate of Oman's bowman said 'Our second day was even better than the first one but we still need practice on this boat because it is still new to us. Hopefully we can do even better on the third day and keep the momentum up.'
On a course where it often didn't pay to lead Alinghi regularly was the best starter and was unable to hang on for long. 'For once we were starting well' said Alinghi skipper Morgan Larson. 'Sometimes with this lake you find yourself doing the right thing then the wind evaporates and fills in from somewhere else. It is a lake of opportunity and the other guys took a few better opportunities than we did. Traunsee is tricky. You have to chip away and learn from your mistakes. It is impossible to predict the winds here.'
After the immaculate Omani team Spindrift racing finally came good scoring the second best result of the day. Dona Bertarelli and Yann Guichard's team became the fourth different race winner after claiming race six showing how competitive the five-boat fleet is.
Oman Sail CEO David Graham who also went onboard with Sultanate of Oman said 'The GC32 Tour provides us a platform to use our Extreme 40 team and they have been helpful in making it happen. It's a new thing for us but everyone is excited and motivated.'
Results [after day two]:
1 Sultanate of Oman (17 pts) 2 Alinghi (23) 3 Team ENGIE (27) 4 Spindrift racing (27) 5 Armin Strom Sailing Team (41).
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