(MENAFN- Muscat Daily) Oman Air settled for a third place in the inaugural official GC32 World Championship in Riva del Garda, Italy, on Sunday. Team Tilt of Switzerland claimed the top honours while Danish side SAP Extreme Sailing Team was second.
The championship witnessed a total of 13 boats vying for the top honours and a podium finish for Oman Air, skippered by Phil Robertson, helped it maintain the third spot in the 2018 Extreme Sailing Series (ESS) standings.
The Lake Garda event was also a point-scoring event for the seven-stop ESS. Oman Air had won the unofficial GC32 world championship in Muscat last year.
'We're kind of happy,' said Robertson. 'We know we made a lot of mistakes. On two days we left a lot of points on the table which we need to eliminate going forward.
'We're working hard on that and have had some pretty frank conversations about it, but it's good. We're improving, that's the main thing.'
With the points collected on Sunday, Oman Air keeps its third place in the ESS standings, tied for points with Ernesto Bertarelli's Alinghi - three-time ESS champion ahead of Barcelona Act next month.
'We're pumped for Barcelona,' Robertson enthused. 'We won there last year and it was the first event we won together as a team. We have great memories there and we'll try and replicate them, for sure.'
Robertson's crew comprises Pete Greenhalgh, James Wierzbowski, Stewart Dodson and Nasser al Mashari.
Mashari, the only Omani sailor on board, said, 'With more boats than usual on the startline and around the course, at times it was very exciting. It added something different and it was of course more competitive, but it was a lot of fun. With a good finish in Garda we can look forward to the rest of the season with confidence.'
ESS overall standings: 1 SAP Extreme Sailing Team (23 points), 2 Alinghi (21), 3 Oman Air (21), 4 INEOS Rebel UK (19), 5 Red Bull Sailing Team (16), 6 Team Mexico (13).
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