kukuKERchu at the Audi Hong Kong to Vietnam Race

by RHKYC Media on 30 Sep 2013 At the Audi Hong Kong to Vietnam Race, starting on 17 October, kukuKERchu, a Ker 40 owned by David Ross for the past two years, will have a total of nine crew on board. All of the crew has raced with the kukuKERchu program over the years at various regattas throughout Asia, both on the 40 and the previous 32 of the same name.

Joining David (who at 59 is the eldest) is Adam Minoprio - Emirates Team New Zealand Volvo Ocean Racer and World Match Racing Tour champion 2009 with BlackMatch Racing (currently lying in second place on this year’s WMRT as Alpari Racing), Tom Powrie a member of the BlackMatch World Match Racing Tour champions of 2009 and Alpari Racing crew in this year’s WMRT and Phil Robertson of WAKA Racing, a very talented young sailor also on the WMRT circuit with a chance to take the title. Phil was in Hong Kong in May of this year and was runner-up to Will Tiller in RHKYC’s 1O1O 4G Hong Kong International Match Racing Regatta.

The other key people on board are Jono Rankine - Navigator and boat Captain, Ollie Scott-Mackie - North Sails (the youngest crewmember at 22) and Jamie Thompson - boat builder at McConaghy Boats, yes including Kukukerchu.

David is looking forward to the Race and says 'kukukerchu was built for this type of racing so we are hoping that she, and we, perform to expectations at this, her first opportunity at offshore, downhill reaching in the expected big breeze.'

He suspects that 'Ragamuffin should be the Line Honours winner and perhaps break the course record. However on handicap it will be an interesting outcome as most of the fleet has the ability to pull off a win dependent on conditions, tactics and the array of very talented sailors across the fleet. I guess we will know around Oct 21!'

David is looking forward to many aspects of the race however the two that stand out for him are racing with his daughter Mairead - they’ve done plenty of racing together but never a Cat one - or as he puts it, 'a father-daughter race in a fully cooked racing machine'.