Raja Muda - up and running

by Guy Nowell, Sail-World Asia on 17 Nov 2008 The weather forecast offered ‘a little bit of this’ and ‘not much of that’, but it was still Busy Central down on the pontoons in front of the Royal Selangor Yacht Club yesterday morning as crews loaded supplies, unloaded unwanted gear, watered up and (eventually) set off.

There was a ferocious stream running down the river, an ebbing tide of 6 or maybe 7 knots was the figure quoted, giving the fleet a ride on a brown conveyor belt down to the sea. PRO Jerry Rollin had everything in position in good time, and was obliged to reposition the Committee Boat more than once due to a dragging anchor, but still managed to sound the first warning signal right on time at 1255 hrs and send off Class 6, the non-IRC boats, bang on time at 1300 hrs.

The current through the start line was ‘only’ 2.5 kts but, combined with 4-6 knots of southeasterly wind calling for spinnakers, provided for some interesting moments, with a number of boats OCS and obliged to claw back to the line and re-start. The boats that got it absolutely right were Class 1, the racing division, stemming the current 100m or so from the line, and then turning all together, hoisting spinnakers, and hitting the line right on schedule.

Just two hours later the tide turned, and many boats were obliged to drop anchors and kedge as the meager breeze gasped out entirely. Hi Fi pulled up the hook after a 30 minute tea-break next door to Australian Maid, started sailing backwards, but then hooked into a little vein of breeze, crossed the stern of the Maid and started to do a ‘horizon job’ on the fleet. All the way up the track the breeze was 4, 5, 6 knots with patches of nothing at all. At one point Mandrake were worried about missing lunch the next day (today) when they went all the way down to 0.00.

The support ship Polaris, a former Swedish torpedo boat, steamed very gently through the fleet on an almost entirely flat sea – it was one of those rare occasions when the media mob reckoned that were having it better than the sailors!

Guest Relations Manager Anica Bussell served chilled white wine to exhausted journalists as we watched Jelik, by no means at the front of the fleet, tacking out to sea. Crewmember Peter Wykeham–Martin said later, 'It was a gamble – we weren’t going to make up time on the handicaps by staying on the inshore track with everyone else, so we took a flyer. It was not a good decision.'

From a rather smaller boat, the M30 Happy Endings, owner Jonathan Mahoney said, 'It was one of those races that make you swear that you’ll never do this again. (But of course you always will. The Raja Muda is such a good regatta, and the weather is so amazingly variable, that you never know what the next race will bring.' Happy Endings was first home in IRC Class 4 at 0850 hrs, but succumbed to Heinz Heyer’s Super Duper on handicap.

Neil Pryde’s HiFi crossed the finish line at 03.23 hrs, and followed an hour and 47 minutes later by the DK46, Quantum Racing (Ray Roberts). At the prizegiving party tonight, RSYC General Manager and MC John Ferguson noted, 'Neil was so delighted with Line Honours that he bought a round for the whole regatta – at 0600 this morning. Unfortunately the rest of the fleet took so long to get here that the HiFi crew drank it all for you…' It was certainly a remarkable performance, and bearing in mind that in 15 out of 18 Rala Mudas (guesstimate courtesy of Capt Marty) the winner of the Pangkor race has gone on to win the series, this could be Pryde’s third tilt at the trophy – but it won’t be easy.

Moya Hin, the resurrected Bashford 41 formerly known as Jenny III, has made a very welcome reappearance in the fleet. Once a force to be reckoned with, she has been rescued from a shameful state of disrepair to the extent that many of us didn’t recognise her at all. She worked exceptionally hard on the inshore track all night – spending far too much time trying to avoid the same fishing net again, and again, and again – and then sailing in good breeze (well, 8-10 knots) and less current (inshore) to eventually pop out at the front of the fleet just before the finish line.

More breeze beckoned on the right, over towards Lumut, which then meant a deep reach away down to the finish, and a race against Ben Copley’s shiny new Swan Club 42. Katsu won the drag race, but Moya Hin won the numbers, coming a well-deserved 2nd in Class 3 behind the exceptionally well-sailed Malaysian Navy entry, Zuhrah.

Today was recuperation day – at least, until the prizegiving party this evening – but there is a sense of ‘game on’ amongst the sailors tonight. Tomorrow’s race starts at 1300 hrs and takes the fleet north some 70 nm to Penang, negotiating the notorious tip of the Kra Bank in order to get to the finish line. In Penang there will be not only a day of windward/leeward racing, but also additional racing in the form of the infamous Penang Trishaw Races. Watch this space.

Abbreviated results:

Class 1 IRC 1
1 Hi Fi
2 Quantum Racing
3 Fortis Mandrake
Class 2 IRC 2
1 Baby Tonga
2 Virgo
3 Yasooda
Class 3 IRC 3
1 Zuhrah
2 Moya Hin
3 Katsu
Class 4 IRC 4
1 Super Duper
2 Happy Endings
3 Skybird
Class 5 Multihull
(There is no Class 5)
Class 6 non-IRC
1 Sirius
2 Rascal
3 Millennium

Full results at www.rmsir.com