Phuket King’s Cup 2014, day 5 - Good things come to those who wait
by Guy Nowell, Sail-World Asia on 6 Dec 2014
Black fantastic. Jelik. Phuket King's Cup 2014 Guy Nowell / Phuket King's Cup
Breeze. Glorious, steady breeze from 070 at anything between 8 and 12 kts, bang on time, and lasting. But we are getting ahead of ourselves: today is 5th December, the birthday of His Majesty King Bhumiphol Adulyadej of Thailand, the monarch for whom this regatta was inaugurated and after whom it is named. The King behind the King’s Cup, literally. For the past several years, racing on His Majesty’s birthday has been preceded by a Sail Past, with the racing fleet saluting a warship of the Royal Thai Navy. Today the assembled 92-odd boats of the 2014 Phuket King’s Cup fleet fell into line and paid respects on the way to the racecourse. Everyone from the 100ft Zephiro to the massed Optimists of the PKC dinghy fleet – and the Oppies was the best bit of all.
As soon as the Sail Past was over, boats zipped out to their respective course areas in the anticipation of getting on with some racing just as soon as possible with the breeze to hand.
On Course Bravo, now under the command of Regatta Director Simon James, the programme was to get in a couple of windward-leewards in order to lift the race count. Not necessarily the favourite racing format for many of the competitors, but something they need to get to grips with if they have aspirations of climbing out of the charter divisions. Reaching and islands is not everything.
With no hesitation apart from a pause to shift a windward mark in a clocking breeze, RO Ross Chisholm also started the Course Alpha divisions off on a series of windward-leeward courses too. Even the Premier Cruisers were obliged to go looking for marks instead of islands. Two races in quick succession, and then a short hiatus before the third, but by now the breeze was starting to soften and three races was definitely enough.
We’d like to know about the tiger that suddenly appeared on board HiFi, and we want to know hat on earth Shahtoosh was flying from the masthead. We are intrigued as to whether a Thai longtail makes a good camera boat (had a bad experience there, once), and we’d like to congratulate the Mamba (Advance Racing) crew on a multi-year programme of perseverance that is at last paying off. We’d like to suggest to Henry Kaye that he puts the missing 4 feet back on his Sea Cart, and we are certain that a black band in the right place makes all the difference – ask Windsikher.
Tomorrow will be the last day of racing at the 2014 Phuket King’s Cup. The last day of sand-between-the-toes and wet shorts as the crews wade out to the longtails. The last day of an 0700 start and the lady selling water and ice on the beach. It’s been a long regatta, and we never imagined how much we counted on a lay day to get the ducks back in line halfway through the week. Six days straight on the water, even though nothing was happening a lot of the time, and still one more to go. See you on the beach.
Full results are at www.kingscup.com
Short results (inc drop):
IRC 0
1. Beau Geste (10)
2. HiFi (13)
3. Oi! (24)
IRC 1
1. Island Fling (11)
2. EFG Mandrake (17)
3. Uranus (21)
IRC 2
1. TBG Team Premier (8)
2. Foxy Lady VI (16)
3. Windsikher (20)
IRC 3
1. Foreign Affair (8)
2. Madame Butterfly (12)
3. Royal Thai Navy 1
Firefly 850
1. Advance Racing (13)
2. Voodoo (13)
3. Twin Sharks (15)
Multihull Racing
1. Hurricane (7)
2. Java (15)
3. 3-Itch (22)
Premier Cruising
1. Pine Pacific (7)
2. Starlight (11)
3. Zuhrah (12)
Multihull Cruising
1. Minnie (6)
2. Star Fruit (8)
Modern Classic
1. Windstar (7)
2. Farrgo Express (9)
3. Remington (13)
Cruising
1. Lady Bubbly (9)
2. Skyelark (12)
3. Odin (16)
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