Russell Coutts won the Dubai Match Race Challenge in dramatic fashion last week, edging out Jes Gram-Hansen after the second leg of the event was cut short by a heavy storm and ended in darkness.

Winds gusting up to 40 knots had threatened to prevent any action, but when racing eventually got under way it was Coutts who came through to defeat the Danish star in an event marking the competitive debut of the RC44 racing boat.

Trailing 2-1 from the first leg, Gram-Hansen kept alive his hopes of a first ever match racing victory over the three-times America's Cup-winning helmsman with an opening win after one of the three scheduled races was cancelled.

But the series was then decided when the Dane was halted by a broken jib, leaving Coutts clear to record a 3-2 success and add the Dubai Match Race Challenge to his long list of international honours.

The event was a big success for organisers Dubai International Marine Club and V1 Advanced Composite Technologies, who have built the high performance composite-built RC44 along with Pauger Carbon from Budapest.

For much of the afternoon, however, with a sand storm blowing in from the desert, it looked increasingly unlikely that any action would be possible.

Surveying the scene from the Dubai International Marine Club (DIMC) breakwater, where a hospitality marquee was being battered by the wind as rain began to call, Coutts said at one point: "We just can't start in this."

Shortly afterwards the wind began to drop and, with light fading, the decision was taken to start the second leg and the two RC44s made their way from the DIMC marina to the course.

Skippering a crew built around the Italian-based 2007 America's Cup challenger, Mascalzone Latino-Capitalia Team, Gram-Hansen took an early lead in the first race of the second leg and went on to win by five seconds, levelling the series at 2-2.

Then came the showdown, and with darkness descending Gram-Hansen initially got his keel stuck in sand, eventually escaping and hitting the start with an advantage.

But Coutts was soon ahead and the broken jib finally ended the Dane's challenge.