KEY WEST (FLORIDA): Sheikh Hassan bin Jabor Al-Thani and Steve Curtis MBE continued their superb return to the sport of offshore powerboating together by winning the second of the three races in the Extreme class at the 44th Annual Offshore World Championship in Florida on Friday afternoon.
Not content with dominating Wednesday’s Truman Waterfront Cup at Key West they also secured victory in the Southernmost Continental Championship to earn 101 points and take a 22-point advantage into the third and final race over the weekend.
With support from Qatar’s Ministry of Sport and Youth, Sheikh Hassan and Curtis guided the Mercury-engined Spirit of Qatar 96 MTi catamaran to victory over the American Custom Marine duo of Jeff McCann and Mickael Knoblock by 2min 59.7sec. They were comfortably quicker than their rivals on each of the six laps.
“It was two out of two for us,” said Sheikh Hassan. “It was a good race for us. We had a bit of a challenge at the start. It was choppy conditions and these were to our advantage. The other boat could not keep up with us. We played it safe and saved the equipment. Now we are looking forward to the final race on Sunday afternoon. It is worth double points. We didn’t want to do anything crazy on the boat.”
