Paul Campbell-James has won his second straight Extreme Sailing Series – helming Luna Rossa to victory in the final round in Singapore and earning enough points to take the championship for the team. Campbell James skippered Oman Sail’s ‘The Wave Muscat’ to victory in 2010.
Max Sirena, Paul Campbell-James, Alister Richardson and Manuel Modena, who have raced together on the Extreme 40 all season, hardly put a foot wrong over the 35 races in Singapore. They went into the final day with a previously unheard of 56-point lead over their arch rivals for the 2011 title, the French team of Groupe Edmond de Rothschild.
Luna Rossa topped the Act 9 leaderboard with a 45-point margin over 2nd placed The Wave, Muscat.
Luna Rossa Skipper, Max Sirena said:
“I’m really happy! Now, finally! We close the season well and it wasn’t expected because we didn’t sail well in the last event. I don’t know what happened here but we sailed pretty well and started off the line always in the right position. Tactically and from a crew point of view we were sailing always at 100 per cent which is really good and I’m really proud of the guys. It’s great for our long-term future so we’re really, really happy.”
Despite 6 different Act winners during the year, coming into the final Act, only the French and Italian teams could win the overall title.
Campbell-James said:
“We’re ecstatic right now. The goal for the week was to beat Gitana and we had a 56 point lead this morning and at lunchtime we had 59 point lead. I was doing the maths in my head and I knew that if we finished every race in the afternoon we would still beat them and we just had to stay out of trouble.”
Dean Barker’s crew were well in contention for the title, before America’s Cup World Series calendar clashes forced them to lose valuable points in Cowes and other rounds. The New Zealand team finished 3rd overall.
Skipper Dean Barker said:
“It’s been a very tough event with Luna Rossa showing the way on how to sail in these conditions and it’s been a very tight battle for the remaining set of podium positions. We had a good start to the year, leading the circuit after four events and then we had mixed fortunes during the middle of the year. We knew coming here we could only get third which we’ve done.”
Extreme Sailing Series 2011 Key Stats
- 9 Acts
- 3 continents
- 301 races
- 11 teams / 2 wildcards
- 6 different Act winners
- 287,000 spectators
- 5 capsizes
- 5 major crashes (and plenty of brushes!)
- 15 nationalities
- 42 TV broadcasters
- Over 1 million YouTube views
Extreme Sailing Series Act 9 Final, Singapore
- 1st Luna Rossa (ITA), Max Sirena / Paul Campbell-James / Alister Richardson / Manuel Modena 260 points
- 2nd The Wave, Muscat (OMA), Leigh McMillan / Kyle Langford / Nick Hutton / Khamis Al Anbouri 215 points
- 3rd Emirates Team New Zealand (NZL), Dean Barker / Glenn Ashby / James Dagg / Jeremy Lomas 215 points
- 4th Red Bull Extreme Sailing (AUT), Roman Hagara / Hans Peter Steinacher / Matt Adams / Craig Monk 214 points
- 5th Alinghi (SUI), Tanguy Cariou / Yann Guichard / Nils Frei / Yves Detrey 206.5
- 6th Oman Air (OMA), Chris Draper / Kinley Fowler / David Carr / Nasser Al Mashari 205 points
- 7th Groupe Edmond de Rothschild (FRA), Pierre Pennec / Christophe Espagnon / Thierry Fouchier / Hervé Cunningham 179 points
- 8th Team GAC Pindar (GBR), Ian Williams / Mark Bulkeley / Andrew Walsh / Matt Cornwell 167 points
- 9th Team TILT (SUI), Alex Schneiter / Charles Favre / Arnaud Psarofaghis / Nicolas Heintz 156 points
- 10th Team Extreme – the first club™ (FRA), Sébastien Col / Jean-Christophe Mourniac / Franck Citeau / Christophe André 150 points
Extreme Sailing Series Overall Points 2011
Overall 2011 Championship final result after 9 Acts
- 1st Luna Rossa 80 points
- 2nd Groupe Edmond de Rothschild 73 points
- 3rd Emirates Team New Zealand 69 points
- 4th The Wave, Muscat 67 points
- 5th Alinghi 66 points
- 6th Red Bull Extreme Sailing 61 points
- 7th Oman Air 53 points
- 8th Artemis Racing 48 points
- 9th Team GAC Pindar 33 points
- 10th Team Extreme 22 points
- 11th Niceforyou 17 points
