On the first day of the Extreme Sailing Series, the boats sailed in the Bay of Nice with very light wind (less than 10 knots or 19 km/h). Despite this, the show was on display just a few meters from the beach and the Swiss team, Realteam, took the lead.
Two hours before the grand start of the seventh stage of the Extreme Sailing Series, the weather seemed to concern the 11 skippers. Indeed, “a mirror sea,” a small breeze leading to long and very tactical regattas: an advantage for some, a significant disadvantage for most others. Scheduled for Thursday, eight races of approximately 15 minutes each. The principle is simple: line start, buoy passages, and a finish between the organizing boat and the black buoy.
For the fourth consecutive edition in Nice, the lineup is of rare quality. Eleven boats are competing, including the French team Groupama, the Austrian team Red Bull, Team New Zealand, the Swiss team Alinghi, and JP Morgan helmed by Sir Ben Ainslie, a four-time Olympic champion.
As expected, the first regattas are very tactical, with part of the fleet on port (left) and the other on starboard (right) due to a very light wind (less than 6 knots or 11 km/h), referred to as a “pétale” by sailors. JP Morgan (Great Britain), Realteam (Switzerland), and Gazprom (Russia) win the first three regattas.
“We expect extremely tactical and tight races until the end. We don’t mind because we train on Lake Geneva and are used to these conditions,” explained Jérôme Clerc, skipper of the Swiss boat Realteam, during the presentation conference.
In the middle of the afternoon, the much-anticipated breeze finally appeared in different areas of the water, complicating the boats’ tasks. Each regatta saw one or two boats stalled due to wind holes, while others caught the wind and moved quickly. In the last five regattas of the day, Realteam (SUI), Alinghi (SUI) twice, Gazprom (RUS), and Groupama (FRA) crossed the finish line first. It was a great performance for the two Swiss boats and the Russian boat that managed two wins each on the first day.
After eight of the 32 (maximum) regattas scheduled over four days, the Swiss team Realteam is leading the standings with 51 points, closely followed by Gazprom and Groupama tied in second with 48 points each. The surprises of the day came from Alinghi and The Wave Muscat (Oman), ranked first and second in the overall standings of the Extreme Sailing Series, but only finished seventh and eighth at the end of the first day of racing.
