The fleet stayed in the protective lagoon until soon before the 2pm start and decided to put in a single reef on their mainsails before going out into open water. This is a safety precaution which not only reduces the sail area, but also stops the boat from tipping and hopefully avoiding a capsize. As an added cap on the speed of the boats and the potential for danger, crews were also told by the race committee that they would not be sailing with their gennakers downwind, these are the big sails which can increase the boat speed by fifty percent.
The racing began with a perfect start from all the teams and they were straight into high octane racing with the carbon fibre Extreme 40’s launching off the tops of waves and contending with the spray coming over the boats. As each boat went around the top mark and bore away to come back down to the bottom, everyone lining the shores held their breath as they watched these 40 foot missiles accelerate away and teeter on the edge of nose diving. After the fourth race, Roman Hagara, skipper of Red Bull Extreme Sailing fell foul of a small error and before he knew it, his Extreme 40 had lost control and the one thing all teams fear most happened- they capsized. Roman Hagara was thrown from the boat as the back end raised 30 feet in the air and was injured enough to be taken off the boat and seen to by the onshore medical team. The rest of his crew escaped unhurt and were fortunate enough to right the boat with the help of the support boats and no damage was sustained. They did have to sit out the remaining races which will has resulted in them finding themselves down the leaderboard which they have dominated since the first day of racing.
In the end, it was China Team who proved that consistency pays off and ended the day in the lead on 71 points. Right behind them are the two Oman teams on 70 points each and with only a little bit of space behind them is the Red Bull Extreme Sailing team who can still recover from today and win the event overall. BT on 63 points and Almeria on 56 points will still be pushing hard come the first start of tomorrow's final day of racing.
