Monsoon Cup – Malaysian Team goes out with heads held high

by Rob Kothe on 5 Dec 2009
The 2009 Malaysian Match Racing Champions, Hazwan Hazim Dermawan and his Taring Pelangi Team have exited before the quarter finals in the Monsoon Cup, the last round of the 2009 World Match Racing Tour.

But they were not alone. The 2007 and 2008 World Match Racing Champion, Ian Williams and his Team Pindar, former Match Racing World Champion Magnus Holmberg and his Team Victory and Italian Francesco Bruni and his Azzurra team also failed to progress in this very competitive international event.

It has been a rapid rise for the 21 year old sailor Hazwan Hazim, who started sailing at age 11 in Optimists and progressed to sailing 420s and 470s. In spite of limited local competition, he showed plenty of talent with good placings in the Volvo Youth Worlds and the SEA Games,

His first Match Racing experience was in the 2008 Malaysian Match Racing Championship, where as the bowman for the Perak Sailing Team, he went on to compete in the Monsoon Cup.

The 21 year old made his match racing debut as a skipper in the 2009 Asian Match Racing Championship with crew members, Muhammad Rezaki, Mohamad Saifullah, Syed Ahmad Syahmi, Shahrizal Hashim.

‘The Asian qualifiers helped us lift our standard when we had to race against some of the best teams in Asia, in an event won by Phil Robertson, who has finished third in the Monsoon Cup round robin’ stated Hazwan Hazim.

The Perak, Johor born, sailor and his Taring Pelangi team won five out of their 12 matches in the Asian Championship and then went on to win the Malaysian titles from a field of thirteen crews.

'We trained with Yanmar Racing a couple of times after winning the Malaysian Match Racing Championship and we managed to pick up a few valuable match racing tricks from Peter Gilmour and his team. And during this event, we were given more technical advice from Yanmar Racing’s trimmer.

‘Most of all we are trying to learn about the pre-start and we can only do that by racing against the top sailors and it has been a great honour to be here this year.’

The skipper of the 'Made-in-Terengganu' Taring Pelangi crew summed up by saying ‘We had no fear going into this event. We had nothing to lose but everything to gain by competing against the cream of the world’s best sailors.'

‘We had hoped for light weather because we are a very light crew, we weigh all together just 320kg, while the weight limit is 430kg, so when the wind is 10 knots or more we cannot go as fast as the other crews.

‘We are going to have to all eat more hamburgers over the next 12 months’ he joked.

‘But seriously we will be keen to gain more experience during the year and come back stronger in 2010’ concluded Hazwan Hazim.