Vietnam Race 2006 - the hill that never ends

by Guy Nowell / Sail World Asia on 1 Nov 2006 It’s all over bar the bar talk now, and Sail World Asia apologises for the delay in posting a race report – that’s got a lot to do with broadband connections that don’t connect, and 24kb phone lines with hiccups. (Good morning, Vietnam!)

By all accounts – and there were plenty of them and all discussed at great length in the bars and social venues of Nha Trang – it was a grand race with wind speeds of up to 30 knots, and all coming from the ‘right’ direction.

RO Jimmy Farquhar started the fleet from near the south east corner of Lamma Island on 25 October, under what would have been sunny skies but for the ever-present Hong Kong haze. It was a short beat to the windward mark, with Mandrake and Island Fling fighting over the rounding honours, and then the spinnakers went up for the next 656nm.

First home – in a shade under 48 hours, and therefore outside Skandia’s 2004 record of 42h 45m 41s – was Benoit Lesaffre’s catamaran Atmosphere.

With a crew of only four, it was hard work and long hours on the only multihull in the fleet. Breeze during the trip ranged from 30 knots at the top end down to a frustrating 5 knots for a short while before the finish. ‘It was a good run’ said Lesaffre, ‘but somehow we didn’t go quite as fast as I had hoped.’

Still fast enough, though, to get there in front of Paul Winkelmann’s TP52 Island Fling just 36 minutes later. The Fling crew came ashore looking very weary indeed. ‘We pushed the boat really hard the whole way’ said Skipper Taff Dodds. ’It was a 48 hours’ sprint, and my little cherubs gave it absolutely everything.’

Island Fling blew out two spinnakers, and sliced off three stanchions when a deck block blew apart, the first indications of a ‘laundry list’ that grew longer with every boat that arrived. ‘TP52s are wet boats,’ added Dodds, ‘and when we were hitting speeds in the top 20’s the water was coming over the coachroof ankle-deep.’ Fling worked hard gybing back and forth in front of the squalls that chased her into Nha Trang, and got good mileage out of it.

Neil Pryde’s Hi Fi (Farr 52) was next boat home, a mere 24 minutes ahead of Fred Kinmonth’s Farr-Mills 51 Mandrake, and therefore well back in the fleet on corrected time. Pryde was looking rueful when they landed. ‘We got a bit ‘lost’ coming down to the finish, and ended up on the wrong side of a thunder squall – the side with no breeze.’

Mandrake had gybed in towards the coast earlier and got in the right side of the same squall, making up a large portion of a 19-mile deficit on Hi Fi. ‘It was wet, wet, wet all the way down the track,’ said one crewmember, ‘and just like sailing down a hill that never ends.’

Next to round the corner of Hon Tre Island and head for the finish line after a seriously fast run from Hong Kong was Anthony Day’s Sayer 41 Siren, the smallest boat in the IRC A division. Finishing only two hours after Mandrake was more than good enough to slot her into 2nd place in the Grand Prix fleet.

The other TP52 in the fleet, Sam Chan’s Ffree Fire 52 should have been long since, but had retired only 18 hours into the race with ‘rig damage’. Chan was very happy with their performance up to that point – ‘we were really on fire, and were hitting all the good numbers and knew we were giving Island Fling a run for their money. We were slowed down by a fishing net not far out of Hong Kong, but that didn’t hold us down for long.’

‘Then there was a nasty noise from up front, and we found that the mast had crushed inwards behind the pole track.’ It was race game over for Ffree Fire 52, but they were still hitting 18 knots plus under jib and storm trysail. ‘Even those speeds were frustrating, as it only made us realise what we would have been doing with as full suit of sails up.’

Other casualties of the race were Polar Star who diverted to Sanya, Hainan Island with a damaged boom, and the smallest competitor in the fleet, Quest, who returned to Hong Kong on the first night out.

HSBC Strewth arrived the next morning, then Drumstick and Hocux Pocux 2. Strewth reported a hugely enjoyable race, and their time gave them 1st place in the Premier Cruising division. Drumstick had had a rough time of it, blowing three spinnakers and a substantial collection of halyards. Owner Robbie Knight said ‘it just felt like hard work – all the way’.

Hocux Pocux 2, has been sold to a new owner in Singapore, so this was her last race out of Hong Kong. Her shopping bill included one spinnaker, one spinnaker pole and a collection of sheets and guys. Skipper Bruno admitted that it was hard work pushing an X-612 in the wind and weather conditions they experienced. ‘Hocux Pocux is a 27-ton boat, and the loads are huge – we just couldn’t run at the same speeds as the racing boats, which in some respects would have made life easier.’

The breeze held all the way to the finish for the last boats home – Peter Cremers’ Shahtoosh on Saturday morning and the fleet baby, Simon Woods’ Beneteau 40.7 Barnstormer who crossed the line in the dark at 18h30 local time on Sunday, just in time for the crew party on the beach at Bao Dai’s Villas.

Next day, Sunday, was the Beach Race along the Nha Trang waterfront, in which eight boats competed in an HKPN rating informal race, with handicaps ‘adjusted’ by the Race Committee as they saw fit.

The event prizegiving party took place at the Nha Trang Sailing Club (not to be confused with the Nha Trang Yacht Club) on Sunday evening, attended by the Sponsor’s Chairman and CEO, Mr Horst Geicke, together with other local dignitaries.

Throughout the race from Hong Kong the RHKYC Race Management Team in Nha Trang were able to follow the progress of the fleet with the tracking systems provided by Pole Star and SkyWave. This system was first used for the China Sea Race earlier this year, with positions of all boats being polled hourly throughout the race, and accessible on the internet through Purplefinder software.

Friends and families of crew on the competing boats were able to follow the progress of the fleet during the race, but RHKYC Sailing Manager Alex Johnston pointed out that the system has a very serious practical application as well. ‘Not only did we know for sure that the retirees were headed home safely – and got home safely – but it also allows us to gauge the arrival times of finishing boats.’

Other race reports and full results can be found at www.rhkyc.org.hk, and Sail World Asia will post photos of the Vietnam Race and the Nha Trang Beach Race just as soon as we are able to get to a bandwidth sufficient to load images.