United and DPS off to a winning start

The final of the traditional 22-foot Sailing Dhow race was held on Saturday at Mina Seyahi in the seventh event of the Majid Bin Mohammad Watersports Championships. Emaar, skippered by Salim Ali Salim Adidi, took first place after a shaky start left them last at the first mark. In second was Serab, skippered by Abdul Aziz Mohammad Abdul Aziz and third was Humaid Ali Al Muhairi on Al Asifa. "Our win today was significant," said Adidi. "We were last at the first mark but used our tactics well to come back and win the race." This season's series has been plagued with bad luck and unfortunate rule breaches. The first round earlier this month saw unfavourable conditions with the wind speed increasing as the boats waited on the start line. Gusts exceeding 20 knots forced the organisers at Dubai International Marine Club to postpone. The next endeavour to run the 23- boat race saw the complete opposite conditions with little wind forcing the organisers to move the course out to sea. Strict rules But the racers' luck was not with them again as the wind died as the dhows approached the finish line and in their quest to complete the race, competitors took to using oars, contravening the rules meaning 18 boats were disqualified leaving only five and none of the top teams."We have a lot of work to do," said DIMC Sports Committee chairman Huraiz Al Mur Huraiz. "The development of watersports in the region has been excellent and we want to enhance what has been done so far. We are going over all aspects of each of the sports to see what we can introduce to make further developments." The 22-foot sailing dhow was designed as the teaching class of the traditional dhow and rules dictate that only the skipper can be over 17 years of age and the team must be from the UAE. The traditional class is part of the Emirates culture and heritage programme. The 22-foot boat is part of DIMC's youth into sports incentive and was introduced in 1988 to encourage local youngsters to sail and join their fathers and grandfathers. The next round of the Majid Bin Mohammed Watersports Championship is on Friday.