Four young sailors crowned national champions

Sports Friday 19/August/2016 17:20 PM
By: Times News Service
Four young sailors crowned national champions

Sur: Five days of youth sailing came to a close as four young sailors were crowned champions in the 2016 National Sailing Championship organised by Oman Sail.
The competition saw the Oman Sail schools battling it out in the open waters for the top honours and emerging the national sailing champions for this year.
The race took place from August 14 to 18 in Sur, Oman off the coast of the city where the young sailors aged between 10 and 17 competed in the three categories — Techno, Optimist and Laser.
During the first three days of the competition the wind was strong and currents were rough which posed a challenge for the sailors as well as the during the final days of the competition where there was little or no wind at all.
Abdulmajid Al Hadhrami, 16, was crowned champion of the Techno 7.8 class, a windsurfing race, and hopes that his performance could take him to the Olympics in the near future.
“There was strong competition considering that there was little wind. It was challenging when there was a strong current. The hardest thing about windsurfing is controlling the board when there is a lot of wind,” explained Al Hadhrami about the five day championship.
Abdullah Al Sarhi, 14, who was crowned champion in the techno 6.8 class event and said that the challenges were the strong currents during the first few days of the competition, and lack of wind during the final stages.
“I planned out my route during the race. So I kept planning until the race started and thankfully there was some good wind in my path and I came out on top,” explained Al Sarhi about his strategy.
Zakariya Al Wahabi, 16, the winner of the laser category of sailing said that the first few days he felt the race was difficult because the boat was new to him and he had little time to train on it.
“I faced a few challenges, but I kept training to the best of my abilities although there was little or no wind. I had to play with the waves, tighten or loosen up my mainsail and most importantly focus while sailing,” said Al Wahabi as he explains his training which lead him to win in his class of boats.
Al Moatasim Al Farsi, 14, the winner of the optimist category had been training for three years which helped him win the first place.
“The wind speed kept increasing and decreasing which was quite challenging and there was a lot of competition between the other sailors,” explained Al Farsi about his experience during the race.