It’s now a world series, and the Red Bull Extreme Sailing team will be there when it begins in Muscat on February 20. We set sail on a sea of fascinating figures about the Extreme Sailing Series 2011…
9...
Now that the Extreme Sailing Series for Asia and Europe are combined for the first time in 2011, there are nine exciting venues for the action: Muscat (Oman), Qingdao (China), Istanbul (Turkey), Boston (USA), Cowes (UK), Trapani (Italy), Nice (France), Almeria (Spain) and Singapore.
11...
More events, and now more teams, too. Among the 11 taking to the water are Red Bull Extreme Sailing, winners of 12 races last year, skippered by Roman Hagara, alongside his Austrian colleague Hans-Peter Steinacher, with whom he won two Olympic titles. The other two in the permanent Red Bull team of four are Brit Will Howden, an Olympic bronze medallist and double America’s Cup winner, and New Zealander Craig Monk, who has a wealth of Extreme Sailing Series and other yacht racing experience. Incidentally, this new series also sees the option of having a fifth member to help out as a guest of each team at each event, if you’re lucky enough to be invited. How are your sea legs?
282...
This year’s series sees 47 days of racing and up to 282 races, each lasting only 20 minutes. This fast and furious format has an added edge in the final race of each of the nine tour events, where points will be doubled.
2013...
The next America’s Cup, the 34th edition, will be held in San Francisco, California, in 2013. Four of the teams already entered for that event are trying their hand at the Extreme Sailing Series in the meantime: Artemis, Emirates Team New Zealand, Luna Rossa and Alinghi.
40...
The boat spec for the Extreme Sailing Series 2011 will once again be the TornadoSport Extreme40, in other words (or numbers), a 40ft-long (12.19m), 1.25-tonne carbon multihull yacht, baked in an autoclave at 120ºC for maximum strength by manufacturers Marstrom. The beam is 26ft (7.92m) and the sail mast a massive 62ft high (18.89m). The huge 75sqm mainsail, in the hands of expert skippers like Hagara, can propel the boat at up to 40 knots (74kph/46mph). Well, blow me down!
Want more?
- Extreme Sailing Series Muscat event page on redbull.com
- Extreme Sailing Series on Twitter and Facebook
- Official Extreme Sailing Series preview video
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