RHKYC Tomes Cup 2008- 'a nice day for a sail'

by Guy Nowell, Sail World Asia on 14 Jan 2008 It was one of those unreasonably good-looking days that Hong Kong occasionally manages to pull out of the bag. Blue skies, sunshine, and even breeze enough for some hugely enjoyable racing. The day before had been a complete clag-out of mist (or fog, but I can’t remember the precise definition of when one becomes the other) and the day after was back to January-standard grey and uninteresting.

The Tomes Cup is one of the RHKYC’s annual series of pursuit races – staggered starts according to HKPN handicap ratings, and (hopefully) everyone arriving at the finish line together. For the slower boats starting first a pursuit race is an agonising trip round the cans spent with an entire fleet coming up behind, and for the back starters it is a nail-biting exercise in playing catch-up before the clock runs out. The race is part of the RHKYC Top Dog Series (along with the HKRNVR Vase, the Lipton Trophy and the Around the Island Race) in which boats from the various one-design classes all compete against each other.

Saturday’s race started at Hung Hom in 6-8 kts of breeze with RO Phyllis Change sending the fleet on a big-medium-small triangles starboard-rounding Course 5 involving marks at the Shau Kei Wan, Tai Koo Shing, Dock, Gate and Kowloon Bay buoys.

After the first lap Pasisana (Pandora, Kenny Mok) was hanging on to a handy lead, with a clutch of Ruffians, other Pandoras and the odd Sonata working hard to catch up. After two times round, Barrry Hayes’ reconditioned Ruffian, Bandolero, had taken the lead, and the immediate followers were still the smaller (early) starters. Not until the third bottom mark rounding did the Etchells, Dragons, sportsboats and cruisers start to make an impression. Of course, this is as it should be in a pursuit race, with everyone – in theory - hitting the finish line at once, but the preponderance of little boats at the top of the results list caused many of the sailors to wonder if the race hadn’t finished too early to actually allow the back markers a chance to get there at all.

Calling the finish for a pursuit race is a piece of fine judgement; doing the maths ‘backwards’ should provide an elapsed time at which (say) a Pandora with handicap ‘x’ and an Etchells with handicap ‘y’ both finish together – the trick is to prescribe a course that allows for this, and that’s not easy.

Anyway, there were no real complaints heard in the bar afterwards – everyone had enjoyed the sunshine and breeze so much. “Never mind the results” said one competitor, “it was just a great day to go for a sail”. Bandolero hung on to the lead to take the gun in style, with the followers as listed below.

Barry Hayes was delighted to be presented with the beautiful silver Tomes Cup, on which the inscription reads “Sugar Refiners’ Cup, won by Naomi 1st April 1880”. The trophy was donated to the RHKYC in the late 1960s by Mrs Tomes, widow of a member of the Tomes family of the old Hong Kong family of Shewan Tomes & Co Ltd, and has been awarded for an annual pursuit race ever since. What a delight that a trophy is still being contested 128 years after it was first inaugurated…



Bandolero HKG207 Ruffian Barry Hayes 15:59:21 1
Pasisana HKG158 Pandora Kenny Mok 16:01:59 2
Chopstix HKG229 Sonata George Strome 16:03:28 3
Panache HKG167 Pandora Raymond Ng 16:04:00 4
Miss Piggy HKG530 Ruffian Peter Leung 16:04:23 5
Windfall HKG516 Pandora Tom Ho 16:04:58 6
Victory 9 HKG515 Ruffian Li fook Hing 16:05:53 7
Ffatal Attraction HKG3500 Flying 15 Rupert Sydenham 16:07:02 8
Solstice HKG668 Pandora K W Chair 16:07:16 9
Sex Drive HKG787 Cruiser Rob Berkley 16:07:58 10
Schannuleke HKG250 Ruffian Mike Rowbotham 16:07:59 11
Taxi HKG1047 Impala Florence Kan 16:08:00 12
Sai Kung Belle HKG2133 Quarter Tonner Jamie McWilliiam 16:08:17 13
Ling Yuan HKG716 Impala H Wong 16:08:31 14
Allegro 2 HKG1052 Sonata Lucinda Ho 16:09:25 15
Noisy Forefather HKG3722 Flying 15 Sam Chan 16:10:35 16
Squiffy HKG3830 Flying 15 Howard Williams 16:10:36 17
Ffirecracker HKG3828 Flying 15 Andrew Malone 16:10:55 18
GNU HKG262 Impala P. Jacson 16:11:34 19
French Fries HKG3415 Flying 15 Jun Komatsu 16:11:42 20
Brigand HKG70 Ruffian Mark Clifford 16:12:00 21
Impala I HKG9546 Impala Gaston Chan 16:12:15 22
Dream On HKG1269 Etchells Mark Thornburrow 16:12:18 23
Ambush HKG2080 Hicks 31 Taylor / Isler 16:12:39 24
My Ffair Lady HKG3533 Flying 15 Higuchi Masayoshi 16:12:49 25
Pied Piper HKG235 Impala Russell Worth 16:13:19 26
Ffantasia HKG3476 Flying 15 Brett Butcher 16:13:20 27
Also Can HKG785 Impala Ambrose Lo 16:13:32 28
What's The Story HKG072 Magic 25 Peter Roche 16:13:35 29
Goodie HKG571 Sonata T Y Wong 16:13:41 30
Moll HKG1045 Impala Philip Bowring 16:14:01 31
Rainbow Chaser HKG731 Impala Wilcox Tam 16:14:11 32
Kerfuffle HKG3876 Flying 15 Carlyon Knight-Evans 16:14:16 33
3 x 11 HKG787 Etchells Jimmy Farquhar 16:15:49 34
My Ffair Lady HKG3700 Flying 15 Naoki Ishihara 16:16:04 35
Gunga Din HKG1243 Etchells Nick Burns 16:16:18 36
Mind The Bumps HKG1344 Etchells Alastair MacAulay 16:16:27 37
Moonraker II HKG20 Dragon Andreas Brechbuhl 16:16:47 38
Sailbad The Sinner HKG760 Etchells Ian Fleming 16:16:54 39
Ffaux Pas HKG3212 Flying 15 Corun 16:17:02 40
Diva HKG269 Etchells Mark Yeason 16:17:35 41
Ffor Ffun HKG3305 Flying 15 Suzanne Downes 16:17:50 42
Boss Hogg HKG1066 Impala Patrick Kwan 16:18:01 43
Mellow Yellow HKG903 Etchells Andy Lam 16:18:02 44
Easy Tiger HKG884 Etchells Simon Watson 16:18:07 45
Malpractice HKG606 Etchells Mike McCool 16:18:15 46
Dragon HKG38 Dragon Marc St. Laurent 16:18:18 47
TBA HKG696 Etchells Colin Smith 16:18:31 48
Marianne HKG788 Etchells Denis Martinet 16:18:34 49
Zulu HKG1190 Etchells Chris Botsford 16:19:34 50
Cave Canem HKG1092 Cruiser Simon Boyde 16:19:40 51
Hakuna Matata HKG150 Pandora Pearl Wong 16:21:20 52