'Perfect 10' in Hobie Asian Championships 2005

by Event Media on 9 Oct 2005 After an 11th hour entry at Thursday night’s registration party at Dublin Jack’s, a total of 47 Hobie Cats (seven Hong Kong based Hobie Tigers and 40 Hobie 16’s) had signed up for the first ever Hobie Asian Championship.

This event follows on from 11 consecutive years of the Hong Kong Hobie Club’s Hobie ‘Asian Classic’ and this year attracted visiting teams from an impressive ten nations besides the 32 locally based entrants.

On Friday morning at 10:00 hrs HKHC Commodore Nigel Harris welcomed the competitors to Tai Tam Beach on behalf of the main sponsors, Allied Pickfords, before handing the proceedings over to Principal Race Officer Jerry Rollin from Manila the day before.

The conditions off Stanley Peninsula were fine and sunny for the first day’s racing with winds of between 8 and 14 knots from the east but swinging back and forth as much as 40 degrees during the day.

Thai Hobie team sailors Damrongsak and Sakda Vongtim got off to an impressive perfect start in the regatta with bullets in the first three races in the very competitive Hobie 16 fleet. Home team Tong Shing and Evergreen Lee, who won last year’s HAC, would have been in second place overall with a 3-2-2 score were it not for their OCS (41 point penalty for starting early) in the last race.

This gave the Singaporeans Melcolm Huang and Pei Quan Chung second place overall with a 2-9-2 tally of 13 and Fijian sailors Grahame Southwick and crew Joana Arong third overall with 16 points. Philippine Hobie 16 sailors Mark Haswell and Andrea Levinge slotted in to 4th place with 21 points just two points ahead of Northern Marianas Islands Tony Stearns and Janet McCullough. Second ranked Philippine team Rex Puentespina and Erin Prelypchan held a lead of only one point over the second home team sailors Christian Wright and Susan MacDonald.

In the Hobie Tiger fleet Peter and Brenda Davies also put themselves in a commanding position with three bullets from three races.

Nigel Harris and his crew Ed Shiffner, of Allied Pickfords Beijing, were the only team to beat the Davies’ to the windward mark, on the third race. They placed second overall, one place ahead of Peter Hogewoning and Matt McGinn who only just made the start of the first race after replacing their spinnaker pole before leaving the beach after one of the Hobie 16’s capsized on the beach and broke the original.

Sadly four teams failed to sign on, and three neglected to sign off, for the day’s racing – signing on and off serves 2 functions. It is a safety measure implemented to ensure all the Hobies are accounted for at the end of the day, and secondly, signing off is a declaration that you have completed the day’s competition in compliance with the racing rules of sailing. The penalty for those who did not sign on was a disqualification in the first race of the day, with disqualification from the last race of the day for those who did not sign off.

Day 2

More superb sailing conditions off Stanley on the southern side of Hong Kong Island for the second of three days of intense competition.

The skies were predominantly overcast, whilst winds of between 8 to 14 knots steady, with the odd gust exceeding 20 knots from Beaufort Island, powered the full contingent of 47 Hobies around five races.

Despite seeing four teams disqualified from the first race of yesterday’s competition for neglecting to sign on, a further seven teams neglected to do so before leaving the beach on Day 2 and were penalised in a similar manner. Also one Hobie 16 crew was too tired upon arrival back at the beach and forgot to sign off…

While all seven Tigers did sign on, the majority did not leave the beach early enough to make the 10:30 start of race 4, the first race of the day. Commiserations to Philippine sailors Mark Haswell and Andrea Levinge who got a perfect start but came back when they saw the ‘X’ flag raised – apparently the individual recall was being signalled for three Hobie Tigers which were still sailing down to the start line!

Thailand’s Damrongsak and Sakda Vongtim continued to dominate the Hobie 16 fleet, maintaining their first overall. Congratulations to Australians Bruce Tardrew and Gerard Ryan who denied them another day’s perfect score by beating them into second place in the first race of the day. They are now placed second overall with eight races sailed and one discard.

After taking penalty turns for at least two incidents on the water, Singaporeans Melcolm Huang and Pei Quan Chung finished the day in third place with Mark Haswell and Andrea Levinge in fourth overall, nudging the Fijian team of Grahame Southwick and Joana Arong into fifth.

Thai sailor Gary Baguley and his second crew of the regatta, Pascal Croly, pegged up a 4-5-2-11-3 tally today which has elevated him into 6th place on equal 44 points with Tong Shing and Evergreen Lee who were the top placed Hong Kong team.

In the Hobie Tiger fleet Peter and Brenda Davies were, in a similar fashion to Hobie 16 sailors Damrongsak and Sakda Vongtim, denied a perfect score by Frenchman JC Broyelle and his local crew Fai Chai who pushed them down into second place in the last race.

JC would have done well to follow the example of the Singaporean Hobie 16 team’s prompt penalty turns after infringing rules in the day’s penultimate race. After making contact with Nigel Harris’s Tiger on a mark rounding he eventually accepted his error and made a penalty turn almost two full legs later.

Protest Committee chair Ronnie McCracken and his team found that he had indeed broken a rule but as he failed to exonerate himself “as soon as possible (maximum 20 seconds) after the incident,” he was to be disqualified in race seven. That left Broyelle and Harris on equal point overall and tied in second place.


Day 3

Big rolling waves and tricky wind shifts with strengths of between 12 and 18 knots added an element of excitement to the last and closing day of the Championships.

Possibly still recovering from Saturday night’s beach party complete with free-flowing Guinness, Kilkenny and lager form Dublin Jack’s at the HKHC, some boats were late for the start of the first race at 10:30 hrs. Sympathy for home sailor Tong Shing who missed the start today due to helping another competitor repairing their boat before leaving the beach.

Excitement in the first beat of the day when a Bubba Wong’s shrimp boat charged through just to windward of the start line forcing some Hobies into emergency gybes to avoid the trailing lines and nets. Philippine sailors Louis Perfectua and Chris Pitchell successfully navigated past the obstructions and were almost second around the windward mark had they not capsized just before rounding!

The first two races of the day were windward-leewards while the last two were triangle-sausages.

Damrongsak and Sakda Vongtim obliterated the Hobie 16 competition with yet another 3 magnificent bullets. They would have had a perfect regatta with twelve bullets if they had not come second to Australia’s Bruce Tardrew and Gerard Ryan on the first race on Saturday. As it was they discarded a first place and a second to finish with a perfect score of 10 for the regatta.

Tardrew and Ryan were to consolidate their second place overall ten points clear of the Singaporean youth team of Melcolm Huang and Pei Quan Chung – both teams sailing very consistently.

Fijian Grahame Southwick and Joana Arong regained their 4th place overall in the Hobie 16 fleet whilst Thailand’s Gary Baguley and his third crew of the regatta, Carina Croly, just snatched 5th place by one point from the Philippine duo of Mark Haswell and Andrea Levinge leaving Tong Shing and Evergreen Lee to place 7th overall as the top performing home 16.

In the Hobie Tiger division Peter and Brenda Davies snagged first place overall with a 2-1-2 tally for today’s racing. Second in the Tiger fleet went to JC Broyelle and Fa Chai despite another fantastic capsize