It was hard, and it was close, but two wins in the opening pair of inshore races, added to a close second in the opening offshore leg from Bahrain, put down a serious marker of intent by the Plymouth University-based team on Messe Frankfurt competing in the EFG Sailing Arabia – The Tour in Doha, Qatar.
The 21-year-old marine and navigation undergraduate skipper Marcel Herrera may be mature beyond his years most of the time, but he could not prevent a huge, boyish grin as he assessed being second by just half a point to the favourite, the vastly experienced Sidney Gavignet, after the first full round.
Gavignet is racing under the flag of Europe and Monaco but he is the linchpin of the sailing programme set up by Oman Sail, which is organising this fourth Arabian tour.
In his crew is a former world match-racing champion, Damien Iehl, and the whole event so far has been a head-to-head scrap between Herrera and Gavignet.
The Frenchman said even he was surprised by some of the tactical calls being made by Iehl. “It was intense and fiery at times,” he said.
In contrast, Herrera said: “There was lots of pressure on us to hold on to the lead but no one talked, they just kept their heads down and did their job.
“It feels great to put together such a good result in what were highly tactical and tricky conditions.”
Doha, like so many Middle East cities, is a mass of development and new skyscrapers and they were close enough to the racecourse to cause constant bends in the ten-knot winds.
At least it was warm and sunny and the water was flat, quite different from the conditions in which the team has been training out of Sutton Harbour. “That made it easier for us to perform at our best,” added Herrera.
Also adding to their earlier improvement was the all-woman crew skippered by the Californian Kate Pettibone and containing four women from the academy programme in Oman.
They were fourth on the first leg as the Oman Navy bombed into last place. The women were fifth in the first inshore but then scored a deeply satisfying third in the second.
“It’s a long journey and all the teams will get better but we leave here fourth overall, and I’ll take that,” she said.
Wednesday sees the fleet leave Qatar for the longest of the seven coastal races, the 180-mile run to Abu Dhabi, where the boats are expected early on Thursday morning.
EFG Sailing Arabia – The Tour: Standings after one offshore and two inshore races: 1 EFG Bank (S Gavignet) 2pts, 2 Messe Frankfurt (M Herrera) 2.5, 3 Delft Challenge (K Heemskerk) 4.75, 4 Bank of Muscat (K Pettibone) 6.00, 5 Renaissance (M Busaidi) 7.25, 6 Royal Navy of Oman (A Al-Haisani) 9.00.