Pedro Blanco Race 2014 - Line honours and IRC overall to Ambush

by RHKYC Media on 25 Mar 2014 The benefits of the ‘Pedro Blanco’ as a warm up for the Category one Rolex China Sea Race were easy to see, as the 100nm Category three overnight offshore offers boats, particularly those competing offshore for the first time, a chance to practice their night sailing, crew rotations and drills in preparation for Easter’s 565nm blue water classic.

With a simple ‘out-and-back’ course, a 13-strong fleet started from Steep Island, to the east of Hong Kong, before sailing into China waters, rounding Pedro Blanco Rock and returning to Hong Kong via TCS1.

After just under 13 hours of sailing, Mills 41 Ambush crossed the virtual finish line of the 2014 Pedro Blanco Race, taking both Line Honours and IRC Overall titles for this year’s edition of the race.

After the race, Ambush co-owner and skipper Andrew Taylor described the race as 'sailing in breeze of 10 to 25kts, in big bouncy seas with not a lot of pattern to them. We got 18.2kts out of the old girl and a number of rides into the 17’s on the way back - we did have a ‘Chinese gybe’ but got her back on her feet without any damage!'

Asked what put Ambush so far ahead of the competition, Taylor added 'Good pace and height upwind got us to Pedro Blanco first and then we kept it together in an ugly wave angle for the first 40mins after the rock. After that it was good fast running - if only we were in a light boat!'

Results

IRC Racer 1			IRC
HKG2208	Ambush	Andrew Taylor	1.158	12:53:43	14:55:58	1
HKG2159	Krampus	Niccolo Manno	1.098	15:27:25	16:58:18	2
HKG2213	Ramrod	Bruno Villemaire / Olivier Decamps	1.178	14:36:30	17:12:31	3
IRC Racer 2			IRC
HKG 2047	Avant Garde	Chin Yeu Seah	1.093	18:23:00	20:05:35	1
HKG2298	Sell Side Dream	Simon Powell	1.095	DNF	DNF	DNF
IRC Premier			IRC
HKG2250	Tipsy Easy	K F Yong	1.123	15:36:40	17:31:53	1
HKG2333	Lighthorse	Shawn Kang	1.141	15:36:56	17:49:02	2
HKG2289	Explorer	Anthony Day	1.089	16:22:41	17:50:09	3
HKG1691	Kei Lun	Richard Van Den Berg	1.053	17:02:30	17:56:42	4
HKG2360	Sea Monkey	Emmanuel Pitsilis	1.107	17:05:00	18:54:40	5
HKPN			HKPN
HKG2117	AYA	Philippe Cotillon	917	17:49:43	19:26:32	1
HKG1401	Wonderwall	David Harari / Alex Cribbin	930	18:23:14	19:46:16	2
HKG2370	Generations	Eddy Lee	1016	DNF	DNF	DN

Event website: click here