Great opener for Koh Samui 20007

by Guy Nowell, Sail World Asia on 28 May 2007 It didn’t look too exciting from the beach in front of regatta HQ – the Central Samui Beach Resort – at 0900 hrs, but there was plenty of talk of 'good breeze yesterday' that came in 'a bit later'.

RO Tony Denham’s faith was rewarded after only a short spell with the AP up when a 12-14 knot breeze off the land kicked in sharply at 1030 hrs, and the combined fleet of 26 boats set off from three starts on a coastal race.

It was a good reaching breeze for the first leg north past Koh Kong Ok and on towards Had Rin, just off Koh Phangan, and then a beat back across the channel to Mae Nam. The breeze must have been pushing the cloud haze away, and as spinnakers went up for the run back to Koh Kong Ok it looked better and better for the cameras. There was still breeze at the finish line off Chawaeng Beach, and the RO had no need to shorten courses or invoke cut-off clauses for any of the divisions. All-in-all it was one of those 'another-shi**y-day-at-tropical- regatta' programmes that ended up with plenty of happy sailors at the Regatta Beach Tavern afterwards.

It was going to be Jelik’s day from the moment the breeze piped up – give Frank Pong 12 kts and the boat will walk away with it on her 76’ long legs, and so she did, not to mention some very sharp-looking crew work through the manoeuvres. So Jelik opened the batting with a line and handicap win, but less than 4 minutes back on the results sheets was the smallest boat in the IRC Racing division, Bill Bremner’s Sydney 40, Foxy Lady. Mandrake (Nick Burns, Farr-Mills 51) slotted into third place in front of Neil Pryde’s Hi Fi (Farr 52). 'We were consistent today', said Pryde, 'consistently in the middle'.

Ffree Fire took a scenic inshore route across a sandbank that delayed her for almost two hours (the scenery must have been very good) but no harm was done – just some anti-fouling rubbed off the side of the bulb. IJ Tom Sheppard was later heard to ask one of the Ffree Fire crew 'so who was navigating?' to which the rueful answer was 'umm… nobody?'

A couple of the multihull fleet managed to find a fishing net across the course a few hundred yards from the start line that caused them a brief delay, and in the combined IRC1 and 2 start there was a collision between Lunchcutter II and Thai Raver in which one of the ‘Lunch’ crew fell across the cockpit and tried to take out a winch with her head. The camera boat assisted with a quick trip to shore for the rather groggy crewmember, but we are happy to report that after a trip to hospital and good night’s sleep she was back on deck this morning.

The first eight boats in the IRC1/2 fleets(s) had calculated finish times within eight minutes of each other, so it was a close scramble places. David Lindahl’s much-campaigned Swan 42 La Samudra claimed the honours in the IRC 1 division, and Aquavit IV (Helmut Schutte, Elan 340) took home the biscuits for IRC 2.

The 7-boat multihull division (including 6 Firefly 850s also racing as a one-design class) looked like a wrap for Firefly designer Mark Pescott on Voodoo Child – until the wrap ended up on the forestay after a fluffed gybe and they were caught and overhauled by Henry Kaye on Mamba. 'Mark is really fast on the reaches', said Kaye, 'so we need more upwind and downwind legs to be able to beat him consistently'.

Full results for KSR 2007 Day 1 Race 1 at www.samuiregatta.com