Phuket King’s Cup 2015 – A new name on the trophy (part 2)

by Guy Nowell, Sail-World Asia on 13 Dec 2015 Just 14 days ago we posted a story at the conclusion of the Raja Muda Selangor International Regatta – “A new name on the trophy” – celebrating a decisive win by Sarab Jeet Singh and the crew of the newly-acquired Windsikher II, formerly HiFi. Now they have done it again, scooping up the Phuket King’s Cup with apparent ease and absolutely no fuss at all, against stiff opposition and pushing some very accomplished teams down the results sheet.

Windsikher went into today’s closing races with plenty of intent, and scored two more bullets on windward-leeward courses: obviously it wasn’t a ‘day off’. After 11 races, Windsikher II is victorious by a substantial margin of 11.5 points over Ray Roberts’ Millennium Racing, with Team Premier Oi! (Hannes Waimer) in third place.

Asked if there was any ‘secret’ involved, Sarab Singh said, “A good boat, good sails, a good crew. And I try to stay in the shade.” It’s been a long time since a Corinthian crew won the King’s Cup, and the Windsikhers have good reason to feel very pleased with themselves. Echoing Brad Butterworth at AC33, Steve McConaghy (on board Millennium Racing, and himself a multiple King’s Cup winner, said “They sailed higher and faster than us. That’s hard to beat. The boat’s a weapon, and they know how to use it. Hats off to Windsikher.”

One class down the sheet, in IRC 1, Ken Eyears’ Rerefine (formerly Windsikher I, just to keep the records nice and neat) also took two first places to win the class having started the last day on level points with Kevin Whitcraft’s Wan Ma Rang. “We couldn’t hold onto them on the short courses today,” said Whitcraft. “We need the longer courses to get an advantage. It was a good fight.”

Yasuo Nanamori’s Karasu, a former winner at King’s Cup, took the IRC 2 title with a 3, 1 finish to beat Jessandra II (Roland Dane) by three points. The remaining divisions were more or less decided yesterday, with the exception of the IRC Cruising class which went down to the wire with Rod Mulcahy’s Slipstream winning on countback from Mustang Sally (Warren Batt) after one race today to close out the series.

The breeze produced some up-and-down variations over five days of racing, the most consistent feature of which was the sunshine. December in Phuket is High Season, and the blue skies of the last week (with the occasional overnight rainstorm to keep everything well rinsed) are the reason why. Asia’s most prominent international regatta once again delivered a quality event, thanks to the well executed on-water Race Management of Ross Chisholm (“Job done see you next year”) and Simon James (who really has hands full as he doubles as Regatta Director) and the less obvious but endlessly valuable work of Kae Wattana and the Regatta Secretariat. Congratulations to all concerned.

2016 will be the 30th Anniversary year of the event that was created in 1987 to mark the birthday of His Majesty King Bhumiphol Adulyadej of Thailand. Over three decades the King’s Cup has produced everything from surprises to celebrations, from heartache to jubilation. It has established reputations and reduced a few as well, and it is still the biggest big boat regatta in Asia whichever way you count it. We look forward to 2016 – it promises to be a bumper event as His Majesty turns 90 on 5th December.

Long Live the King!

Full Results at www.kingscup.com