Britain's Steve Curtis clinched a record fourth Class 1 Offshore Championship at the final round of the series in Dubai.
Britain’s Steve Curtis clinched a record fourth Class 1 Offshore Championship at the final round of the series in Dubai in last Friday.
Norway’s Bjorn Gjelsten, and throttleman Steve Curtis, finished second in Dubai in their boat Spirit of Norway, adding the 2002 World Offshore Championship to the World Pole Position Championship clinched in Qatar a week earlier. This is Curtis’s fourth Class 1 World Championship (his first was back in 1987), an astonishing and unparallelled achievement, and one that makes him the most successful throttleman in the history of Class 1.
The final race of the series was won by Nasser and Al Qama in Victory 7, with Curtis and Gjesten cruising to a comfortable second place, and Australian Barry-Cotter and Mc Grath finishing third in Riviera. So the final championship positions were: Spirit of Norway on 131 points, Victory 7 on 120 points, Riviera on 90 points, Victory 1 on 76 points, and Jotun 90 on 41 points.
A delighted Steve Curtis said after the race “This was probably the toughest of all my Championship wins. But I’ll carry on as long as I enjoy the sport, and as long as Bjorn wants me.” Steve Curtis…we salute you.
