2017 Boase Cohen & Collins Interschool Sailing Fest- a roller coaster

by RHKYC Media / Guy Nowell, Sail-world Asia on 4 Mar 2017 The 2017 Boase Cohen & Collins Inter-School Sailing Festival celebrates the sixteenth edition over the weekend of Saturday fourth and Sunday fifth of March 2017.

The inaugural Inter-School Sailing Festival was organised in 2002 by the RHKYC’s parent-led Youth Sailing Class, to encourage more schools’ sailing and sail training in Hong Kong.

The concept was simple – each team would consist of a minimum of six sailors, who would race three dinghies in a team racing format against their opposition. The results for each boat in a team would be combined and the team with the lowest combined score would win; hence a team finishing second, third and fifth in a race would prevail over a team finishing first, fourth
and sixth.

The team racing format has the effect of neutralising the benefit of having one very good sailor in a team, as being first over the line is not necessarily the optimal result for the team. Tactics feature heavily, with competitors strategically delaying opposition boats to help boost their team’s aggregate score.

The 2002 event featured one division of nine teams battling it out in Topaz dinghies over a round robin of 36 matches. In 2009, a Feva division was added and the competition was expanded to 16 teams and 56 races. By 2015, participation had grown to 22 teams, with teams being seeded and each division dividing into two pools for the round robin stage, with semi-finals and finals featuring a crossover between the top two teams from each round robin. That year King George V School triumphed in the Feva division, while Kellett School won a hard fought final against the Hong Kong Sea School in the Pico division.

In 2016, 22 teams raced at RHKYC’s Middle Island sailing centre, with Division A racing RS Feva dinghies and Division B racing Laser Pico dinghies.

Today: pick up the cudgels, and resume the battle. The Inter-School Sailing Festival 2017 has attracted 21 teams in the two (Feva and Pico) divisions, and with six sailors to a team that makes 126 sailors. It was light and shifty stuff for most of the opening day, but spiced up with frequent bullets of breeze that came through the gap at Middle Island, turning the race course into a roller coaster of a ride. For those that got into the breeze and could hang on, there was victory in spades. For those who missed out, it was a long(ish) trip around the race course. All the first Round Robin races were completed today, and some of the next set, and tomorrow will complete the Round Robins and then go into the knockout rounds.

And here’s the important thing: everyone was going at it hammer-and-tongs, and everyone was enjoying themselves. It’s a Festival, it’s a Carnival, and there’s a whole atmosphere that goes with the occasion that could teach a lesson to some of the more grown-up and ‘serious’ events than we have attended recently. This is a whole lot of young sailors out there enjoying themselves. Actually, this is the second sailing event centred around young people that we have had the pleasure of attending recently (see Hong Kong Raceweek reports, from just a fortnight ago) and it is quite obvious that there is what sailing is meant to be like.

Looking forward to tomorrow – a lot, even though the alarm clock will be going off at 06.30. Watch this space.

DIVISION A : FEVA
POOL SCHOOL
A French International School
A South Island School
A Macau Anglican College
A Kellett School
A Chinese International School
A King George V School
B West Island School
B German Swiss International School
B Island School
B Renaissance College
B Hong Kong Sea School

Division B: Pico
POOL SCHOOL
A King George V School
A French International School
A Hong Kong Schools Sailing Association
A Chinese International School B
A Tai Po Regional Squad
A Creative Secondary School
B Jockey Club Ti-I College
B West Island School
B Chinese International School A
B Kellett School
B The ISF Academy
B Hong Kong International School

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