DUBAI // For the fans gathered along the water's edge of Dubai Marina, it was the day the home crews of Victory 1 and Fazza 3 were to duel for the title in the World Powerboat Championships.
Instead, the crowds watched in horror as the powerful twin-engine craft flipped before crashing violently on its back.
Despite the efforts of the search and rescue teams, it was clear that there was little hope for the two-man crew, Mohammed al Mehairi and Jean-Marc Sanchez.
Hours after the race, the organisers confirmed that the two men were dead.
Witnesses said the crash happened shortly after the race began, in front of the Jumeirah Beach Residence complex.
The distinctive blue vessel, which can reach a speed of more than 250kph, appeared to go out of control on the sixth lap at around 3.44pm. It flew into the air and turned upside down, before landing in the sea.
As the race continued, it took rescuers, including scuba divers and helicopters, several minutes to reach the crash site and attempt to resuscitate the two men.
"They hit the wave, and the front of the boat went front-up into the air," said Torgeir Jakobsen, from Norway, a mechanic for the Maritimo team. "They went up and up, and then flipped backwards."
"The weather conditions," he added, "weren't great - wind, big swells. But this is normal in offshore racing. I think they just had really bad luck."
Al Mehairi, 34, an Emirati, and Sanchez, 48, a Frenchman, were flown to hospital but pronounced dead, the event's host, Dubai International Marine Club, said last night in a statement.
"Safety personnel attended both pilots at the scene," the statement said. "They were subsequently airlifted to a local hospital, where all efforts to resuscitate them were in vain."
The statement added that as "a mark of respect", event organisers had cancelled all remaining activities for today.
Yesterday's race was meant to decide this year's Class 1 World Powerboat Championship, with Victory 1 trailing the leaders, Fazza 3, by just eight points.
The two pilots of Victory 1 went into yesterday's Dubai round as reigning European champions.
After the crash, some spectators and participants said the race should have been halted as soon as the accident happened.
"They didn't stop the race immediately - for two laps after the accident," said Giovanni Carpitella, a member of Sea Dubai, another Dubai racing team.
"Maybe they didn't understand how serious the problem was. When you see a driver come out, then you don't stop the race. But if it's 20 seconds, and nothing happens, you stop it.
"These guys were stuck inside the boat, water was spilling in, and they had to wait nine minutes."
At the time of the crash, the beach in front of the Jumeirah Beach Residence was crowded with hundreds of spectators.
A half-dozen police and other rescue vessels were observed swarming over the wreckage.
One spectator said one man was pulled from under the boat at about 4pm and taken to the marine club docks for resuscitation. The other was retrieved about 10 minutes later, from the boat's cockpit, and also taken to the docks, where scores of police, paramedics and emergency personnel tended to the victims.
Ceciler Knight, 43, from France, was watching the race with her husband, John, 47, and their three children. "It was the most spectacular crash," she said. "The boat was flying upwards, and then it seemed to turn on its back."
It almost seemed suspended in air, she said.
"It was up there for a while," she said. "I was stunned and it took me a while to tell my husband," who was sitting next to her but not watching. "I said, 'Look, look', and it was still up in the air."
Both she and her husband said it took rescuers some time to arrive at the scene.
"It was quite surprising, actually, how long it took the rescue boats to get to them," Mr Knight said. "Maybe they were trying to be careful."
The chairman of the Victory team is Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, the Crown Prince of Dubai, according to the team's website. The team is based in a state-of-the-art headquarters in Dubai Marina, which was opened in 2002.
The 12.67-metre boats each weigh 4,800 kg and use a catamaran design.
Yesterday's accident was the third tragedy to hit the Victory team.
In 1995, Hamed Buhaleeba, regarded as one the UAE's most successful sportsmen, died in a race off southern England when his boat, also called Victory, hit a freak wave and overturned.
Buhaleeba's brother, Rashid, was also in the boat, but was unhurt. At the time of the crash, off the Isle of Wight, Buhaleeba, who was born in Dubai, had won more than 25 titles in five years, including five grand prix races.
Two years earlier, another Victory crew lost control while attempting to overtake teammates in a Class 1 race in Italy and hit a spectators' boat, killing the owner and an 18-year-old man. Four people were injured.
Offshore powerboat racing, which comes in several classes, is an amateur sport regulated by the Dubai-based World Professional Powerboating Association.
hnaylor@thenational.ae
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Transmission: 7-speed automatic with 8-speed sports option
Price: From Dh79,600
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