Raja Muda 2016- The Kra Bank - how far can you go?

by Guy Nowell, Sail-World Asia on 22 Nov 2016 It’s 65nm in a straight line from Pangkor to Penang, but the wise navigator remembers that there is the famous (infamous?) Kra Bank guarding the finish line, and takes notice. The Kra Bank is a tongue of shifting sand reaching out SE to NW from the coast of peninsular Malaysia, with depths of mere feet over much of its very mobile area. It is also the preferred ops area for a multitude of local fishing boats; and where there are boats, there are nets. Sailors, beware.

All starts went off on time from Pulau Pangkor yesterday morning, in 6 kts of breeze from 330 degrees. For the second race in a row the dowager Eveline was on the line on time, leaving the spectating press corps to wonder what on earth was going on. Fujin approached the line just a few seconds fast, with Nathan Wilmot calling the shots, but helmsman Jamie Wilmot opted for a 360 spin to downspeed. It must be tough when the navigator is your son, and an Olympic gold medallist to boot – “For f**k’s sake, Dad!” came clear across the water.

Antipodes executed a neat port tack start to cross Zuhal (Royal Malaysian Navy) right on the line, and Lady Bubbly were very surprised to be called OCS some 10 minutes after the Class 5 start – in fact the offender was Popeye, Class 3, who have now promised to write the boat name more clearly on the quarter. Boats staying on starboard worked their way out from the coast, and those rolling onto port went for a short rock-hopping tour along the foreshore on the northern tip of Pulau Pangkor.

From there it was a gentle drag race: 6-8 kts more or less steady from the NW quarter, with maybe 20 degrees of swing. No squalls, no cells coming off the coast, no sudden reversals of breeze. Idyllic stuff, if a little on the slow side. The main navigational trick was to stay out of the south-setting current and then figure out when to start heading out in order to work around the end of the Kra Bank and head east of north to the Penang finish line.

“For two thirds of the race it was light and shifty,” said Steve Manning on Black Baza, “and then when we got around the end of the Bank, we hit a wall of nothingness. What little breeze there was kept flicking from side to side, and we were tacking again and again through almost 180 degrees.” It was the same story on Windsikher. “Every time we tacked, the breeze started to knock – and knock more – so we tacked again, and then it knocked the other way.” Windsikher eventually claimed line honours at 0205 hrs having “tacked on 0 feet” all the way up the seaward side of the Kra bank, and after watching the Premier Cruisers in Class 2 steadily catching up from behind. RMN Zuhal (Class 2) was second across the line at 0211 hrs followed by Antipodes (0217h), Starlight (0224h), Mandrake (0228h) and Uranus (0228h). All-in-all it was a thorough stir-up of the finishing order when compared to the opening race from Port Klang to Pangkor. After a less than sparkling start in the back row of the stalls, Mandrake more than made up for lost time to ‘cruise’ home for a Class 1 victory.

All the way up the track, it was staying right that paid. Insanity finished second in Class 3 after escaping from under an oncoming fleet of fishing boats that trapped – literally - the Azuree 43, Outlaw, racing in Class 2; Antipodes finished at 0217h and Outlaw some four hours later at 0633h.

For all the late finishers it was slow and painful progress to the line, tacking back and forth in light to non-existent breeze against a foul tide. There were a number of non-finishers in Classes 5 and 6.

Next up: racing entertainment of a different sort as the sailing crews pick up the handles outside Healey Mac's at Straits Quay Marina for some rickshaw racing.

Standing by on 72.

Short results (for full results please go to: www.rmsir.com)

Class 1
1. Mandrake 3, 1 (4)
2. Windsikher 1, 4 (5)
3. Black Baza 4, 5 (9)

Class 2
1. Zuhal 2, 1 (3)
2. Antipodes 1, 3 (4)
3. Starlight 3, 2 (5)

Class 3
1. Fujin 1, 1 (2)
2. Insanity 3, 2 (5)
3. NiJinsky 2, 3 (5)

Class 5
1. Lady Bubbly 2, 1 (3)
2. VG Offshore 1, 2 (3)

Class 6
1. Sade 3, 2 (5)
2. Old Pulteney Blue Angel 6, 1 (7)

(Other results in Classes 5 and 6 pending receipt of gate finishing times)