Top of the Gulf 2010 - another day, another breeze.

by Guy Nowell, Sail-World Asia on 4 May 2010 More bright sunshine (but we expected that) and a generous capful of breeze – to delight the Race Officer as much as the competitors!

There is one race on the card outstanding for the IRC Racing class since race 1 was abandoned on Saturday in the aftermath of the ‘2 vs 7’ continental error. RO Jerry Rollin took a straw poll over the radio, but one boat demurred so the ‘re-sail’ is deferred until tomorrow. Maybe. So the Racing fleet’s programme today was a 30-miler heading southwest towards Koh Klet Kaeo, and then out west and round Koh Rin and back home. Evolution Racing nipped smartly round the in course 2 hrs 43 min and claimed first place on the line and on paper. There’s still unfinished business concerning the abandoned race – to be decided tomorrow. In the meantime, Evolution Racing leads her class by 4 points to 7 (Ichi Ban). Is it our imagination, or does a well-sailed TP52 looked a little mis-matched against a well-optimised Beneteau 44.7?

Also on a trip round the scenery were the IRC 2 and Multihull divisions. Royal Thai Navy extended their lead at the top of the IRC 2 division with yet another win (making it five bullets from five races), and El Coyote, Magic Roundabout and Dynamite following along in exactly the same order as yesterday’s race. Henry Kaye took the opportunity to let Thor off the leash, sailing the same course as IRC Racing and beating Evolution Racing by 13 minutes on the water (having started 10 minutes later, and having thoroughly enjoyed the sailing).

The Cruising division all scored well because the were sent off on the most scenic course of all, down south beyond Koh Klet Kaeo and into the channel to Koh Ra and back again. The division is racing under a Performance Handicap system, so results are strictly variable and entirely unpredictable. Suffice to say that Peter Herning’s Kirafiki is sitting on 15 points with Andrew Watt’s Sansanook close behind with 16.

It was a busy day for the Platus contesting the Coronation Cup, with a three-race card, all windward/leeward courses. Rolf Heemsker’s The Fox recovered from an OCS in race 1 to score a fifth place – but, still, their lowest score to date, but then went and added another fifth place to the score sheet in the last race of the day. After a couple of days in which Scott Duncanson’s wheels seemed to have come off, The Ferrett came back with a cheer today to score 1, 1, 1 and climb within one point of The Fox on the leaderboard. But to make life a bit more interesting for the reporting media, there’s rumour out there that Heemskerk was DSQ’d out of today’s race two in a protest hearing… and that would put The Ferret in the lead. Either way, points are close, and there’s everything to play for tomorrow.

Full results (except the bit about The Fox’s DSQ) at: www.topofthegulfregatta.com

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