XXI South East Asian (SEA) Games - Kuala Lumpur 2001 Sailing

by Captain Marty on 11 Sep 2001 No wind delays the first GOLD Medal in sailing

At the 1100 hrs start to the serious sailing competition between 6 of the 10 SE Asian nations a fresh 8 to 10 knot SWesterly breeze greeted the sailors. The Optimist
class quickly got into the round robins of the Teams event with 4 of the best under 16 national sailors selected to represent their country scheduled for today. After a series
of races where points are awarded to the teams overall placings and kind of like a knockout competition the 2 teams with the lowest points will have a sail off for the final
rounds. Then a gold medal will be presented to the winning team on this first day of competition. Sounds good and it had the media down in force, some even on their toes.

The other classes race on two separately laid courses further offshore also got off to a brisk start and had completed the 2 scheduled races with lunch of the 10 race series
where back on the beach in 3 1/2 hours. An interesting exercise on the press boat is helping the journalists identify the 5 or 6 boats moving in evenly matched groups or
classes at five minute intervals on different parts of the course. Lightning fast tacks on the wind shifts and covering tacks seemed to be the coaches orders for the day
because if you miss one of them you slow down just enough to let someone past.

The early results had traditional foes Singapore and Malaysia sharing the top places in the 470's and Laser II with U Moe Miyint's family racing team from Myanmar
providing a surprise with 2 firsts in the 420 boys and a share of the lead in the 420 girls.

Malaysia's Kevin Lim and Tiffany Koo sailing Laser's made it 2 firsts apiece which firmly marks their intention to help Malaysia, who are already on the way with 30 gold's
in 3 days to hopefully win a record haul of medals at these XXI SEA Games.

In the Mistral wind surfers Thailand showed their dominance in the men's light weight class with Arun Homrruen's 2 wins and Napalai Tansai and Phanuthat Ruamsap
shared the honours with Singapore's Rachel Ng in the women's and Indonesia's Oka in the men's heavy weight division.

Even as the Malaysian Optimist team outsailed the Myanmar team in the last of the round robins the breeze had faded to 5 knots and some glassy patches began to
appear on the surface. A quick confirmation of the points put Singapore and Malaysia into a 3 race final. The first start resembled kids driving dodgem cars at a
entertainment centre mixed with the jury and race committee boats who try to arbitrate and police the ISAF team racing rules being used for fair sailing.

Unfortunately as the boats had only covered half the first leg the wind had but completely disappeared and they where lucky to hold there own place in the quick flowing
Mallacca Strait tidal currents. After over an hour in the scorching hot sun and with only 2 boats having finally clawed their way around the first mark the committee had no
option other than to postpone the final to another day. A disappointing finish to a day which started off with great expectations to celebrate the medals victory tonight,
instead as nature will have it we will have to wait till the layday on Thursday to find out who is going to be singing in the streets.

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reports and post up to date race results and news on the AsianYachting XXI SEA Games - Sailing Site at http://AsianYachting.com