Borneo IYC 2003 Day 3

by Guy Nowell, Sail World Asia on 9 Sep 2006 The last racing day in the Borneo International Yachting Challenge, started under sunny skies in 6 knots of breeze on perfectly flat water just outside the Miri Marina.

First away were the two boats in the IRC Racing division, Kay Wilson’s S&S 36 Ambil Angin and the Beneteau 32S5 Sarawak Sea Horse skippered by Johanis (‘Johnny Ambon’) Dahoklory in charge of a Sarawak Tourism Board crew. Having won the Labuan-Miri passage race, Sarawak Sea Horse needed to win just one race out of two to take overall honours for the series.

PRO Jerry Rollin set a windward-leeward course with 1.5 nm legs, and Ambil Angin quickly stepped into a substantial lead which she held all the way to the finish. Sarawak Sea Horse just got home inside the cut-off, but 28 minutes behind the leader was too much for her corrected time.

Finding a convenient gap in the oncoming traffic of the Cruising divisions, Rollin started the second IRC race on the same course, and once again Ambil Angin took off into a handy lead. As the afternoon sea breeze strengthened, it backed some 40 degrees, and the ‘C’ flag went up on the Committee Boat. Somehow Sarawak Sea Horse managed to miss the flag, the sound signals and the board notifying the new course, and set off in wrong direction, to find an empty patch of water were the top mark had previously been. Ambil Angin won handily, to take the Borneo Cup for the IRC Racing class.

The Cruising classes had one race to wrap up the series, and once again – having requested 'more reaching, less beating' – it was an L-shaped course with a one-mile beat and a two-mile reach out and back.

Déjà Vu almost disappeared over the horizon as she tore away into an enormous lead, followed at a respectable distance by Pemburu Laut, Crystal Blues and Tui Tai. A colourful procession of spinnakers reached out and back, looking grand in the Borneo sunshine. Déjà Vu was so quick round the track that she ran down to the finish passing the back markers who were still on the very first leg of the course. Déjà Vu took line and handicap honours, and Crystal Blues earned a DSQ for a port-starboard incident at the start of the race.

In the C division Chris Antolak’s Moca once again showed her competitors a clean pair of heels to record three bullets from three races, and Christopher Chin’s pretty little Cape Cutter 19, Bandoola, took honours in the Classic class.

At the final prizegiving party YB Lee Kim Shin, Asst Minister of Infrastructure Development & Communications (Sarawak) promised at some length that next years BIYC will be bigger and better than ever, and announced plans to include racing into the Sultanate of Brunei into the programme. He also promised that the USD500 ‘bonus’ for entrants would stay in place for next year.

Results

IRC Racing (Cruising A)
Race 4
1 Ambil Angin
2 Sarawak Sea Horse
Race 5
1 Ambil Angin
2 Sarawak Sea Horse
Series Overall
1 Ambil Angin
2 Sarawak Sea Horse

Cruising B
Race 3 Series
1 Déjà Vu 1 Déjà Vu
2 Tui Tai 2 Tui Tai
3 Bogart 3 Crystal Blues
4 Pemburu Laut 4 Bogart
5 Wanderlust 5 Pemburu Laut
6 Reflections 4 6 Largo Star
7 Largo Star 7 Wanderlust
8 Crystal Blues 8 Reflections 4

Cruising C
Race 4 Series
1 Moca 1 Moca
2 Strong Legs 2 Strong Legs
3 Columbus 3 Columbus
3 Augusta 4 Augusta
4 Do Be Do 5 Do Be Do

Classic
Race 3 Series
1 Bandoola 1 Patience
2 Patience 2 Reeflections 2
3 Reeflections 2 3 Bandoola