Fianl count down for the Dubai Gold Cup

Next week, The Dubai Gold Cup promises to be a great conclusion to the first RC 44 Championship Tour, we will will be onsite and report on a daily base.

The regatta will reassemble eight teams representing eight nations. Both fleet and match races are scheduled. The winner of the Dubai Gold Cup will be the team with the smallest number of points in the combination of fleet and match races.

The three leaders of the RC 44 Championship Tour 2007 (Chris Bake’s Team Aqua with pro sailor Cameron Appleton, Russell Coutts’ Team Omega and Miroslav Reljanovic’s Cro-A-Sail) are comfortably established at the top of the RC 44 Championship Tour. However, the regatta promises to be intense with newcomers ES Bankers Dubai (Patrick De Barros / Dean Barker), Team Ceeref (Igor Lah / James Spithill) and Team Hiroshi - Città di Milano (Armando Giulietti / Sébastien Col).

The Dubai Gold Cup will start on Thursday, with fleet races. A match racing round-robin is scheduled on Friday and Saturday whilst the teams will complete the fleet race on Sunday. A short coastal race will be incorporated in the fleet race ranking. With such an exceptional group of some of the best sailors in the world, united in a great location, the event promises to be fantastic.

The first RC 44 Champion will be crowned on Sunday, December 16. The Class Association is looking forward to concluding a first very successful season and is proud to announce that the 2008 program is already finalised.

The teams involved:

(Name of team, owner, pro sailor)

Team Aqua, Chris Bake / Cameron Appleton
Team ES Bankers Dubai, Patrick De Barros / Dean Barker
Team Ceeref, Igor Lah / James Spithill
Team Organika, Maciej Nawrocki / Mateusz Kusznierewicz
Team Omega, Russell Coutts
Cro-A-Sail, Miroslav Reljanovic / Morten Henrikson
Team Hiroshi - Città di Milano, Armando Giulietti / Sébastien Col
Team Beecom, Isao Mita / Kevin Harrap