7th Singapore Straits Regatta Results

by Jonathan Woo on 15 Jan 2001 1500 hours, Sunday January 14, 2001, Changi Sailing Club, Singapore -- It's a wrap! The 7th Singapore Straits Regatta concluded
today at Singapore's Changi Sailing Club in continued light airs. Warwick Downes' Stella ran away from the pack to win the event by
a margin of 5 points over 2nd place Hi Fidelity and 8 points over 3rd place Gotcha Lagi.

Today's final race of the 7th Singapore Straits Regatta began in light to non-existent airs just east of Singapore's Changi Sailing
Club. As the hours passed the wind rose, allowing the yachts to complete the race within the allotted time frame, while also
providing for some extraordinarily close finishes. As expected, the results for the top 3 places in Race 6 echoed those of the overall
results for the regatta at large. Even though she had already secured her first place overall finish due to a cancellation of Saturday's
Race 5, Stella charged out of the gates today, and showed the fleet and all those watching that her overall gold finish wasn't a fluke.
Again placing first, she was followed on corrected time by Amir Zohri Abdul Rahim's Gotcha Lagi and Neil Pryde's Hi Fidelity. Fourth
place for Race 6 went to Keith Moores' Pla Loma, followed by Johannes Waimer's DK 42, Ray Robert's Australia Challenge, Jeffrey
Leow's Jenny III and Stephan Ludwig's Sayonara.

In Racing Class B there was little drama today trying to figure out who was likely to win the division. Like her compatriot in Racing
A, Racing B's Kopi-O had the regatta wrapped up before the final race started. Sydney 38 Stella ran away from the pack to win the event by a margin of 5 points over 2nd place Sydney 46 Hi Fidelity.

Sailing a somewhat conservative race today she
placed 6th overall, yet won the 7th Singapore Straits Regatta with a low points combined score of 8. Second to Kopi-O in the overall
standings is Kurt Metzger's Sampan with a total score of 15, closely followed by David Low's 18 points on KT 2.

While little drama existed for Kopi-O and her crew, there was plenty of drama and plenty of heartache for the rest of the J-24 yachts.
Aside from Tempest - who ran away from the rest of the pack to claim the Race 6 victory - the remaining 6 boats in class all finished
within one minute and forty seconds of one another. This, after nearly three and a half hours of racing! This sort of grouping perfectly
displays why many people are very much in favour of one-design racing, where all competing yachts are of identical make and share
the same handicap. The J-24 grouping was an immensely popular addition to this year's regatta, and with finishes like today's, it's
easy to see why. They are relatively inexpensive, easy to maintain, and are raced in massive droves all over the world, making them
one of the most popular one-design classes anywhere.

While the winds were not how one would ideally script them to be for a week-long regatta, there was enough breeze and plenty of
fierce competition to make the 7th Singapore Straits Regatta a serious and seriously fun event. It should also be noted that the race
officers and race secretariat did an exemplary job in managing all of the behind the scenes events that help make the Singapore
Straits Regatta by far the best managed and most professionally run regatta in the 3-race circuit. While the jobs of these behind the
scenes supporting crews are of course well known to the participants, it should also be noted that the supporting clubs and
sponsors play an equally important role in the execution and success of the Singapore Straits Regatta. A special thanks to boat &
METS Asia, Brewerkz, Raffles Marina, Republic of Singapore Yacht Club, Nongsa Point Marina and Changi Sailing Club. A job well
done!