Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing’s Adil Khalid sick of being stuck on sidelines of Volvo Ocean Race

Sailor ready to return to Azzam after shaking off illnesses, writes Osman Samiuddin

Adil Khalid, a trimmer and helmsman for Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing's Azzam, takes a break below decks during Leg 2 of the Volvo Ocean Race on December 10, 2014. Courtesy Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing

ABU DHABI // Adil Khalid is the picture of good health: fit, refreshed and glowing in that way only sailors do, of all top-level athletes.

Less than two months ago, though, he was not doing so well.

A severe case of food poisoning in Sanya, China, meant that at one stage he was sailing and vomiting almost at the same time in the in-port race.

The bout of food poisoning, contracted a few nights before the start of the Volvo Ocean Race (VOR) fourth leg to Auckland, and an ensuing virus were so severe they forced him to miss two successive legs.

Khalid, the only Emirati or Arab sailor in the race, has recovered to be ready for a return to Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing’s Azzam. Next week he will rejoin his team in Itajai, Brazil, by which time they could well be out in front as the race’s overall leader.

“I’m 100 per cent ready and fit now,” Khalid said in Abu Dhabi, ahead of the start of the seventh GCC Sailing Championships, in which he is taking part.

He said everyone on Azzam suffered from the food poisoning, “but after that it was some kind of virus for a month, which made it very hard for me”.

“If I had stayed on the boat, it would’ve gotten worse,” he said. “When I arrived back, I was in hospital for about eight hours with drips.”

Khalid lost 10 kilograms in the immediate aftermath of his illness and being at a “fighting weight” is almost an obsession in professional sailing.

Sailors are weighed before and after legs, and on-board diets are devised to keep weight loss at a minimum.

He has spent much of his time since he recovered training and regaining the lost weight. Khalid spent the whole of last week at Sir Baniyas island, in relative seclusion to concentrate solely on his training.

“I’ve been training every day, morning and evening,” he said. “Last week in Sir Baniyas, I was working with physical and mental trainers six hours a day. It was great, to get used to being back. To get used to the watch system on the boat, I was training two or three hours in the morning, having a break, then three hours again.”

The enforced break has not been easy; Khalid conceded he had been going “crazy” at home not sailing.

He attempted a return earlier, when the race was stopped over in Auckland before the start of the current leg. He was with the team in New Zealand for a week where he had fitness and medical tests, but once doctors found he had not recovered sufficiently, plans were aborted.

Before he flies out to Itajai a week on Friday, Khalid will get back on to the water as well. He will be sailing as part of the championships this weekend in Abu Dhabi. Then, on Sunday he will represent the UAE in the Gulf Beach Games in Qatar, sailing in the laser class.

Those conditions will be a world away from what his teammates have just experienced in the race's toughest leg, across the Southern Ocean. But Azzam are leading the leg and, if they do finish on the podium, it will stretch their overall lead at the top at a vital stage.

More than the results, Khalid is looking forward to being reunited with his on-board family.

“Of course, I’ve missed the guys,” he said. “I just want to get back on the boat with them. I’ve missed the sailing, the weather. It’s nice when you’re sailing and it’s quiet and you’re far away from everywhere, connected to the sea. You have you and the boat, your family on it and that’s it.”

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