Spirit of Qatar 96 during the 44th Annual Offshore World Championship at Key West in Florida.
KEY WEST, FLORIDA: Sheikh Hassan bin Jabor Al-Thani and Steve Curtis rolled back the years to take part in the first of three races at the 44th Annual Offshore World Championship at Key West in Florida on Wednesday afternoon.
They made the perfect start by taking victory in the Extreme class in the Truman Waterfront Cup. After rekindling their racing partnership following a 10-year sabbatical, the pair used a redesigned and branded Spirit of Qatar 96 hull entered with support from Qatar’s Ministry of Sport and Youth.
Sheikh’s Hassan’s main competition came from the American Custom Marine entry of Jeff McCann and Mickael Knoblock. The duo managed to control the pace against their main rivals from the outset to take a decisive victory in the eight-lap race. They were comfortably quicker than the opposition on every lap to win the class by 2min 39.4sec and take a 10-point lead over their main rivals.
Sheikh Hassan bin Jabor Al-Thani and Steve Curtis celebrate on the podium.
“It was a good race today and we had a good start,” said Sheikh Hassan. “We took the lead from the start. The water was a little bit bumpy. But that was good for us. The boat is a 55-footer. We just handled it and managed it then the way we needed to.
“We finished on the top step of the podium. It was half points today and the next race will be half points as well on Friday and then full points on Sunday. It’s a long weekend but we will wait for the data out of the race and then we will plan for what Friday will look like. So far, all good, everybody is happy and the crew is happy with the result. We are all looking forward to Friday.”
There were also Class 1 entries from the likes of Sheikh Hassan’s old adversaries Darren Nicholson and Giovanni Carpitella in 222 Offshore Australia and Billy Mauff and Jay Muller in WHM.
Other esteemed names to feature in the other classes included former official Qatar Team factory racer and current F1H2O driver Shaun Torrente racing alongside Matt Jamnickzy in Team Nautical Ventures in the Super Stock class and former Victory Team throttleman Gary Ballough sitting alongside Cole Leibel in Raymarine entered in the same category.
This year’s Key West festival has attracted a record-breaking 96 boats across the various race classes with additional teams from the USA, UK, Australia and Bermuda taking part.
Race two of this year’s Key West festival will be for the Southernmost Continental Championship today.
