Beneteau Four Peaks Race 2017 - slow start, fast finish

by Guy Nowell, Sail-World Asia on 6 Feb 2017 The annual Four Peaks Race, organised by the Aberdeen Boat Club and this year with Beneteau in the chair as title sponsor, has been called many things. Exhilarating… frustrating… gruelling… addictive (really!)

With four peaks to climb totalling 2,409m and a little over 70nm of sailing, it’s not an expedition for the faint-hearted. Add in the fact that there’s nearly always cold weather to contend with, and that getting from the sailing boat onto dry land is going to require ‘amphibious landings’ that are not always accomplished dry-shod, and this is without a doubt one of the toughest sporting challenges in Asia - and really should be recognised as such.

The weekend 21-22 January 2017 was a good deal warmer than usual this year, so that was one challenge less on the menu. The race started in light breeze below 10kts in Tai Tam Bay. After a short beat to a windward mark under the steep foreshore of Cape d’Aguilar, the IRC ‘A’ Division boats headed out to Waglan Island while the HKPN competitors turned straight for t e 27nm run to Lantau. First stop for everyone: Cheng Sha beach, and get the runners ashore for the ascent of Lantau Peak (924m, and the highest of the four peaks – and remember, in this race everything starts at sea level by definition).

First boat to arrive at the beach was No One Else (HKPN B) after a painfully slow trip across the southern reaches of Hong Kong’s waters with Lamma to starboard. Get your runners ashore, oops, put them through the rinse cycle as they hit the beach, and for the boat crews it is a waiting game until the runners return. “It took us almost six hours to get to Lantau,” said Nick Southward, owner and skipper of Whiskey Jack, and four-time winner of the Four Peaks Race. “We expected more breeze further offshore, so we headed ‘out’, and then watched everyone else overtake us closer inshore. We spent a whole hour staring at three zeros on the clock. Yes, it was frustrating, so say the least.”

Last boat to arrive at Lantau, in the dark, was Dean Chisholm’s Darling. While the runners were on the hill, and the sailors were sailing in circles (or getting dinner ready, at anchor), the race scrutineers were hard at work. The Four Peaks is a Cat (?) race, and all boats can expect to be scrutineered: do you have the requisite number of flares? Are they all valid ‘in date’?

The first runners back on the baech were from No One Else, having taken just 1h 35m to scale Lantau Peak. That’s impressive, but the Andiamo runners clocked the fastest time on Lantau at just 1h 25m. By the time the fleet leaders crept away from Cheung Sha and started heading for Mt Stenhouse on Lamma Island, the afternoon was over and the sun dropping fast. And then came the breeze.

Whiskey Jack reported “a great reach under Code 0 from Shek Kwu Chau to Lamma, arriving to drop off runners just about midnight.” Mt Stenhouse is the dark is a real puzzle, especially if team tactics call for an ascent on the west side and a descent to the east while the boat ‘goes round’ for the pick-up. It’s only 353m to the top, but it takes almost as long as Lantau Peak – fastest on the hill this time was Avant Garde with 1h 12m on the clock.

Breeze continued good and sailable for the rest of the race. All boats sailed into Repulse Bay and sent runners up Violet Hill (430m) and then the B divisions stopped at Tung Lung Chau (232m) while the A division went all the way to Sai Kung for the ascent of Ma On Shan. That’s a long sailing leg: 20nm there (and another 20 back again. At 702m this is the second highest of the four peaks, but it involves the biggest distance across the ground, and time honours went to the running allstars on board Yolo, with a time of 1h 39m. And then it was back to Repulse Bay to finish.

First to finish on the Sunday morning was Ambush, just 11 minutes shy of 24 hours, followed by Red Kite II some 13 minutes later. All boats finished before 1500h, with Darling bringing up the rear and arriving just in time for a rather late lunch, and then it was down to the number crunchers to calculate the winners: (elapsed sailing time x IRC TCF) + (shore section time) + (penalty time).

And the winners were:

IRC Division A:
1. Red Kite II
2. Whisky Jack
3. Blacljack
HKPN Division A
1. Scintilla
2. Sea Monkey
3. Yolo
HKPN Division B
1. Ragamuffin
2. No One Else
3. White Crane
Motoring Division
1. Darling
(Full results at www.abclub.com)