Oman Sail to enter a 2nd boat into the iShares Cup 2009

After a highly successful season in the 2008 iShares Cup Masirah, Oman Sail’s first X40 will be returning to the competition looking to improve on their fourth place overall. With a podium place in the final event in Amsterdam, the crew finished on a high note which they hope to continue on the canals of Venice on the 15th-17th May 2009.

Skipper Pete Cumming returns with Olympic medalist Chris Draper on the helm, America’s Cup sailor David ‘Freddie’ Carr on foredeck and another Olympic medalist Mark Bulkeley on mainsheet trim. Rounding off these members will be one of the Oman Sail race team crew, either Mubarak Al Battashi or Khamis al Anbouri, who have been training hard alongside crew members during the off-season. If not on Masirah, the Omani crew member will be on the second Oman Sail entry in the iShares Cup, Renaissance.

Renaissance is making it’s debut in the iShares Cup and is an opportunity for Omani companies who operate on aglobal scale to increase their awareness in European markets and create a platform for hospitality and alternative marketing strategies. With the boat named after them, Renaissance Services are one such company who has seen the benefit of an alliance with the Oman team in the iShares Cup. The Suhail BahwanGroup is another such company and is the second sponsor of the striking blue, white and green Extreme 40.

The skipper and helmsman of Renaissance is one of the most well known and respected sailors in the world- Loick Peyron of France. Also known as Mr. Multihull or Jedi-master, Loick has an exhaustive list of accomplishments under his belt, from trans-Atlantic crossings, solo circumnavigations and long distance races on mono and multihulls. His hand picked crew includes a fellow Frenchman and America’s Cup sailor, Julien Cressant who also sailed with Loick in The Race.

They are joined by Australian trimmer Greg Homann and British mainsail trimmer Peter Greenhalgh.

Grapefruit Graphics were again on hand to help the team make their second X40 as impressive as the first. The design is based on the basic identity of the first boat, Massirah which Grapefruit completed back in April 2008.

Click here to read our Oman Sail, Massirah Case Study