Extreme Sailing Series

[khiemtran]

The Extreme Sailing Series has come to Sydney for the final event ("Act") of their season. It's a great opportunity to get to see some fast sailing up close, against a spectacular backdrop.




This is what they call Stadium Racing (or sometimes Theatre-style racing), where the course is very short and close to the crowd. It helps that these sailors are (literally) the best in the world. Here you can see RealTeam (Switzerland) leading JP Morgan BAR (Britain) and Groupama (France).



The races are quick and the fleet is tightly bunched. That's Red Bull (Austria) in the middle and Gazprom (Russia) on the right.



And most of the action happens just metres from the shore.



And sometimes even closer. Here Gazprom has run out of room and hit her daggerboard on some rocks.



There are also plenty of opportunities to see the crews up close. The fleet is studded with Olympic gold medalists and America's Cup winners. Household names (but only in sailing households...)



Here's the Australian team, GAC Pindar, skippered by Olympic gold medalist Nathan Wilmot.



Groupama and the legendary Franck Cammas.



And of course, Ben Ainslie, the most successful Olympic sailor ever, skippering JP Morgan BAR. Ben Ainslie was part of Team Oracle when they won the last America's Cup.



As the wind picks up, the forty-foot catamarans fly up on one beam. This is Oman Air, piloted in Sydney by Tom Slingsby, Australian gold medalist and also part of Team Oracle.







And downwind, they unfurl their gennakers. Each race is over in around fifteen minutes.



Then, after a short break, it's time for the next one...

Comments

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

The light is great on that shot of the Oman Air boat.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, it catches the sails quite nicely. I actually ended up taking over five hundred shots that afternoon (thanks to the magic of digital photography) but at least two-thirds of them were poorly lit.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

How exciting! (I like that there's a part of a boat that's called a daggerboard)

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

A daggerboard is what these boats have instead of keels. They are the white blade-like things you can see sticking out of each hull whenever the hull is out of the water. They can be raised and lowered, and in some of the pictures you can see the top of the daggerboard sticking out above the hull, with markings showing the crew set them in the right position for different situations.