The first day of the Extreme Sailing Series in St Petersburg saw the crew on Oman Air claim a place on the podium overnight after a demanding and challenging series of seven races on the River Neva.

Just three points separate Oman Sail’s GC32 from today’s leaders SAP Extreme Sailing Team with Alinghi sandwiched in between, setting up a tantalizingly close competition over the next three days of racing.

Faced with a breeze that was fresher than forecast and a strong tide that caused problems across the fleet, Morgan Larson’s team, who have a five-point overall lead in the 2016 series going into Act 5, set the standard in the opening two races with two podium finishes to open their account including a resounding win in the second.

With SAP and Alinghi securing three wins apiece, Oman Air finished the day in third place.

“It was a fun day and we were in the thick of it fighting hard,” admitted Pete Greenhalgh.

“But we made our fair share of mistakes so we’ll take a third place overnight.”

“It was very boat handling oriented today and we were a little bit on the back foot. There were a lot of opportunities to overtake which obviously also meant opportunities to lose places and today it went both ways for us.

“We had between seven and 15 knots of wind which was shifty and gusty which made it very physical but all things considered, I think we did a good job and there is a lot more racing to come.”

The close competition between the top three teams was welcomed by the other Oman Air crewmembers Ed Smyth, James Wierzbowski and Omani bowman Nasser Al Mashari and a forecast for similar conditions on day two will require them to be at the top of their game if they are to achieve their fourth win of the series.

“All the teams are sailing really well so it is getting harder and harder,” Al Mashari commented.

“Any of them are capable of holding us off for a whole race if required so it is all getting a lot more competitive. We had a good day today but we will have to raise our game to stay ahead, especially if the conditions remain the same.”

Racing continues tomorrow and through to Sunday September 4. Fans online can watch Act 5 racing live on the official website and YouTube channel from 15:30 – 17:00 GMT+3 on 3 and 4 September. For more information, visit www.extremesailingseries.com