RMSIR 2014 – Last Gasp. A Champion, and 36 winners

by Guy Nowell, Sail-World Asia on 24 Nov 2014 Last day, inshore racing in Bass Harbour. Consolidation and defence. Under threatening skies but with 10-12kts of breeze, PRO Jerry Rollin on the ‘red’ course (Classes 1 and 2) was keen to get three races in to close out the regatta will a full card. First top mark rounding, and HiFi picked up the pin on her keel and was obliged to perform pirouettes to unwind it. That pushed her down to another last place and scuppered any remaining chance of winning RMSIR 2014. Island Fling has been getting quicker and quicker all through the regatta, and ripped round the course for a first place, and Foxy Lady claimed second to place a hand a little more firmly on the Raja Muda Cup.

Neil Pryde was philosophical. 'We had a bad day. There was the mark in the first race, and then an OCS and an attempt at flying a spinnaker without a sheet. Still I’d rather have it all happen in one hit rather than spread it through a whole regatta.' Andy Cocks’s Starlight had the tack of the spinnaker ‘let go’… twice.

The breeze held in for another race on the same axis. Then a big storm cell trucking up towards Langkawi brought 20kts (and more) from the south – and torrential rain as well. On the red course this called for a rapid change of axis for the third and last race. Down south with the cruisers, big dollops of wind came through between the islands, catching some of the boats unawares. One moment they were quietly padding along in just a few knots of breeze enjoying the scenery, and the next they were over on their ear, broaching, and scrambling for a kite drop. Not everyone was successful – Lady Bubbly was left with just three tapes hanging from the masthead, and all that remained of VG Offshore’s spinnaker was a handkerchief-sized shred of material. Barry Wickett’s Kay Sira, Langkawi Sailing School, gave an object lesson in how not to get a spinnaker down, and continued sailing with the sail right at the end of its halyard.

Bernard di Tullio’s Amel 65, Indulgence, revelled in the conditions, storming up Bass Harbour with all sails set and more than just a bone in her teeth. For those that could make the most of it, it was a grand ride to the finish and then on to the RLYC marina.

The breeze dropped, but unfortunately the rain stayed. Post mortems around the bar at Charlie’s were soon under way as everyone was reluctant to step out into the rain and find transport down to the Bella Vista. The press contingent were beavering away trying to get stories written and pictures edited before the prizegiving dinner started – and still the rain stayed in. HRH The Sultan of Selangor’s transport arrangements went awry when he was delivered to the wrong venue (but were quickly corrected), and by 1930h there were 400-odd sailors gathered in the Belle Vista dining room. This was one occasion when the open air venue at RLYC would have been less than perfect! The rain drumming on the roof went largely unheard because the chatter and din within was so loud.

The buffet was served. The day prizes and race prizes were distributed. The Sultan graciously presented the Jugra Challenge Cup for the Premier Cruising division to the crew of Antipodes who missed out by a whisker last year when they hit a rock, and stuck, during the very last race of the series. Then the Raja Muda Cup: to Bill Bremner and the hard-sailing, hard-partying crew of Foxy Lady 6 who had led the regatta all the way from the second race to the end. Bremner won the Raja Muda Cup last year after trying for ten years and with five different boats, and now joins the exclusive club of those that have won back-to-back Raja Mudas. There are only two members – Foxy Lady and HiFi. 'The first time was a dream come true,' said Bremner, 'and the second time… well, I know that sweet can be sweeter!'

The Raja Muda Selangor International Regatta is well known for messing with people’s heads. The combination of passage races that invariably end well into the night – and sometimes extend right into the next day – and inshore racing in Penang and Langkawi demands a boat and a crew that can change gear over and over again. Neil Pryde, who has won the event seven times, say’s 'It’s good because it is so damn hard to win' – even if his track record makes it look easy. Gordon Ketelby, Fujin, has raced in Australia, Europe, the Caribbean and North Americas and ticked pretty much all the boxes. He confided after a couple of DRCs last night that he rates Cowes Week as the best regatta on the planet, and the Raja Muda second. Fujin, a Beneteau 44.7 formerly Ichiban, won Class 3 this year with a clean sweep of seven wins from seven races. You can’t make this stuff up.

So now the Raja Muda has celebrated its first quarter century – quite an achievement for a ‘good idea’ that HRH The Sultan predicted would last 'three years at most'. 2014 has provided competitors with another vintage affair that delivered challenges and frustration in equal measures, light airs and thunderous heavy squalls, inshore and coastal racing (of course), four port calls in wildly different places, and at the end there is left a big of very happy sailors who have had a damn good time. There was only one solitary protest arising out of six days of racing, which says something about the quality of race management (nod to the PRO Jerry Rollins and RO Lesley Anderson, and all the members of the RO team), but also the general air of enjoyment that pervades this event.

The Raja Muda attracts – and accommodates – a remarkable range of boats, from Jeff Harris’s NiJinsky (J/92) to Guy Waddilove’s Escapade (Dubois 37.5m). Both boats completed all the races, even if Escapade didn’t necessarily find light airs windward-leeward courses to be her thing.

The logistics that go to making the Raja Muda ‘work’ are staggering. Baggage leapfrogs the fleet as it moves from one location to the next. The entire Race Secretariat has to be packed away, transported, and re-established over and again – that’s everything from the Official Noticeboard and the Official Flagpole to the paperclips and printers, the banners and bunting, the routers and modems that allow us to leak the stories out to the world as we go along, the computers, the stacks of paper… the list is almost endless. Think of packing up and moving your office lock, stock, and barrel, three times in the same week. Good work, all.

Out on the water the support provided by the Royal Malaysian Police under the watchful eye and steady hand of DSP Tharamadurai Ramanathan is exemplary. For many years now RMP has provided the start boats, support boats and even the principal media boat – and Tharama and his crews do everything that is asked of them with style and enthusiasm. 2014 was no exception.

We’ll close here with a line from Bill Bremner that appears in the 25th Anniversary book: 'Some regattas are near perfect, and the RMSIR is one of them. It’s a delightfully balanced package of challenges that rewards you if you get it right and bites your backside, hard, if you get it even a little bit wrong.' Tick that for 2014.

Short results (Full results online at www.rmsir.com)

Class 1 – the Raja Muda Cup
1. Foxy Lady 6 (19)
2. Island Fling (21)
3. HiFi (32)
Class 2 Premier Cruising – the Jugra Challenge Cup
1. Antipodes (10)
2. Australian Maid (15)
3. Starlight (19.5)
Class 3
1. Fujin (7)
2. Beaux Esprits (17)
3. Rikki Tikki Tavi (18)
Class 4
1. Piccolo (11)
2. Nijinsky (15)
3. Skybird (19.5)
Class 5
1. Sophia (6)
2. Lady Bubble (16)
3. Panacea (23)
Class 6
1. Kay Sira (10)
2. Eveline (12)
3. Aeolus XC (17)
Class 7
1. Hurricane (7)
2. Java (8)
3. 3 Itch (15)

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