Raja Muda 2014, race 2 - More holes than Blackburn, Lancashire

by Guy Nowell, Sail-World Asia on 18 Nov 2014 John Lennon wrote that there were 4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire, and then wondered ‘how many it takes to fill the Albert Hall?’ What ever that number was, there were a great many more out on the race track between Pangkor at 1300h (start time) and Penang. First across the finish line was Neil Pryde’s HiFi after taking 14h 43 minutes to cover a mere 65nm. Probably the slowest Pangkor-Penang race on record - we are checking.

After a light air start, a very gnarly black cloud line crossed the race course, bring as much as 30kts with it, and leaving nothing behind. From there on in it was a regroup and restart, cat and mouse game, with boats picking up a puff here and there and trying hard to make the best of an whatever was available – which was not much. Up at the top of the course the Committee Boat on station was reporting 22kts of solid northerly but – obviously – that never extended very far south before it dissipated.

RO Jerry Rollin agrees that, yes, 'less is indeed more. Meaning that less breeze makes for more stress.' It was a light airs start – very light airs, 2-4 kts. But all divisions ghosted away clear, with the smart call being to head in towards Pulau Pangkor Laut, work around the end of the island and pop out onto the rhumb line on the other side. The racing classes really ‘hit the bricks’, tacking just boat lengths off the shore line and maintaining pace and height around the point, with HiFi leading the way and looking to be in good shape.

Most of the cruisers stood on from the start on starboard, and rather wished they had gone right, instead finding their first flat patch less than a mile from the line. 30 minutes later, and resident centenarian, Eveline, was drifting south towards Port Klang (despite having received specific and ‘helpful’ instruction from the Marine Police that the finish was ‘that way. Penang. North'). And a couple of hours after that, she retired.

'Superyachts don’t usually start races at all in that sort of breeze,' said David Rawlinson, skipper of the biggest boat ever in this regatta – the 37m Escapade. 'We just can’t get moving fast enough to have any sort of steerage, and tacking takes forever! After the signal went for the Premier start, we coasted up to the line , dead upwind, on momentum alone, clearing the line just moments before the IRC1 start.'

The bulk of the fleet set off up the straight line towards the end of the Kra Bank, the sand trap that guards the finish line, and got substantially rained on by the first line squall of the day just an hour or so later. And after that… nothing to almost nothing, as the fleet picked a way gingerly through a minefield of windless holes, gradually regrouping as they went. 'There were three or four hours that we’d rather forget,' said a weary Fletch, bowman on EFG Bank Mandrake III.

On board Zanzibar, becalmed for six full hours, the worst nightmare almost came about – running out of cigarettes. 'You expect some holes during the Raja Muda passage races, but that was ridiculous,' said owner Jono Mahony. 'After the first rain storm we were making good speed, but west, and heading for Sumatra! It set us up on a good angle for Penang… if there had been any damn wind! It filled in here and there, teasing us, but all we really got was a stop-start sequence of either 8kts or nothing at all.'

First to finish was HiFi at 04.18h, and then they all came in a rush. Island Fling (04.27h), Won Ma Rang (04.32h), then a little later Zanzibar (05.03h), EFG Bank Mandrake and Foxy Lady inside a minute (0505h), and Uranus and Windsikher at 05.08h. That’s shunted the IRC 1 fleet around a bit, with Foxy Lady now sitting at the top of the heap and opening batsmen HiFi demoted to fourth – it will be hard to come back from there in a regatta with no discards, but it’s a brave reporter who’s prepared to bet against Neil Pryde.

On board Foxy Lady VI, and definitely keen to defend last year’s totle, Steve McConaghy said, 'we were racing for over 15 hrs in some of the most varied and challenging wind/weather we've ever seen in any Raja Muda. It was damn hard work.' Andy Cocks, owner of the (obviously) very slippery Starlight, sailing in the Premier Cruising division, tipped a hat to the Foxies, describing the race as 'a tough race to get a bullet in with all those systems messing with the fleet.' Matt Humphries, a confirmed Raja Muda addict and with more circumnavigations under his belt than most, adds, 'You can get anything from three lemons to big wind, torrential rain and dead calms, huge lightning storms and perfect reaching along any 30-day leg of the VOR, but at the Raja Muda you can get the whole damn lot in 20 hrs. Killer.'

Six boats didn’t make the 1300h cut off today – there just wasn’t any breeze on the finish line. PRO Kerry Rollin reported that 'we saw one boat crawl to within 300m of the line…and the tide turned and in a mater of minutes they were half a mile away. And then, when we closed the line and started up the Penang Strait in the Polis RIB – in came the wind (and the rain)!' Obviously, Murphy is alive, well, and attends sailing regattas.

Congratulations to the winners and those others who stayed the course, and commiserations to those who tried so damn hard and lost out in the end. Tomorrow: inshore racing here in Penang. Traditionally light airs, but who knows?

Overall Short Results:
IRC 1
1. Foxy Lady VI (3,1) 4
2. Island Fling (2,3) 5
3. Windsikher (4,2) 6
4. HiFi (1,8) 9
Class 2 (Premier Cruising)
1. Australian Maid (2,1) 3
2. Antipodes (1,3) 4
3. Starlight (3,2) 5
4. Escapade (4,4) 8
IRC 3
1. Fujin (1,1) 2
2. Beaux Esprits (2,2) 4
3. Rikki Tikki Tavi (3,3) 6
IRC 4
1. Piccolo (2,1) 3
2. Nijinsky (1,2) 3
3. Skybird (3,3) 6
IRC 5
1. Sophia (1,1) 2
2. Lady Bubbly (3,2) 5
3. Indulgence (4,3) 7
4. Lady Babbly (3,2) 5
IRC 6
1. Kay Sira (1,1) 2
2. Aeolus (2,2) 4
3. Sade (3,3) 6

Full Results at www.rmsir.com