CNN have done three clips about sailing in Dubai, Oman and Abu Dhabi respectively.
Shirly Robertson is obviously the host, the vids are pretty sweet. They seem very speculative about what is / might be happenning here. Rumours that Alinghi have signed a five year deal on the RAK island are afoot in town. Does that mean that if Alinghi win they are planning on repaying the investment that RAK did for the team?
I would really like to see some sponsorship dollars go into grass roots sailing here, and some PR locally about how great sailing is. There is not one open club in the UAE where you can just turn up and go sailing without being a member. There is no level of sustainability for sailors in the region in that case and funnelling enough people into sailing to get any resonable sailors is a near impossible task. Oman Sail are doing this so well and are the only people in the ME that are leaving a legacy. Good coverage of Dubai but we didn’t get any as a fleet 
. Big boats only I guess.
This weekend is the Jumeirah Regatta sponsored by Jumeirah Hotel Group. Oman sail are coming up and bringing their racing crew with them, shame Corky cannot bring his moth up and play. The entire Dubai fleet should be out and racing, so it should be good fun, even Rob’s boat MIGHT be here 
. We mgiht have some pic’s done with some jurno’s while we are out. The prize giving is always an amazing shebang with Jumierah putting on all you can eat and drink buffett for a couple of hundred local sailors. They brought out Conrad Humphries a couple of years ago too to talk to the weekend warriors about what its like to sail round the world. So it should be a great event this weekend for the young oppie and laser sailors, and hopfully us mothies if the breeze is up a touch. Imagine if we got 18 knots.
