Koh Samui Regatta day 3 - Roberts and Pryde tied on points...

by Sawadee.com media on 3 Jun 2010 Although the Windguru predictions were dismally low for the beginning of the week, the diligent race committee have been lucky enough to find up to 15 knots to the north of Koh Samui and have successfully completed three full days of racing. Today, PRO Ross Chisholm elected to hold one windward/leeward race for the Racing Class then send them along with the IRC, Premier Cruisers, Bareboat/Cruising and Multihull Classes on a 30nm coastal course that crisscrossed the passage between Ko Phangan and Koh Samui. While the short one meter chop may have hindered the small boats, it certainly helped the big boats stretch their legs which is reflected in the results.

While Ray Roberts TP52 Evolution Racing and Neil Pryde's Welbourn 52 Hi Fi are concentrating on match racing each other, they left their guard down and let the Nick Burns/Fred Kinmonth co-owned Mills 51 EFG Mandrake sail through to win Race 6. By scoring third place Frank Pong's 76ft Jelik II wedges himself in between Evolution Racing and Hi Fi that finished up second and forth respectively plus provides some urgently needed points separation to aid Roberts cause. Evolution Racing seems to have a slight edge upwind while Hi Fi benefits by running a little deeper downwind. The long windward beat on the coastal race set Roberts up by the top mark and they managed to fend off Pryde downwind to triumph in Race 7, to equal the overall score at 10 each. Third for Jelik and forth for EFG Mandrake also has them tied on 18 points for third and fourth overall spots. So if it was not interesting enough before these results, the final two days of racing after the lay-day tomorrow will certainly be entertaining.

There seems to be no stopping David Ross' Kerr 32 Kukukerchu as they won Race 4 to make it three wins in a row in the IRC Class. Ben Copley's Club Swan NY 42OD Katsu convincingly took line honours but missed out on handicap honours by a little under a minute to secure second place and advance to second overall. Robert van Paridon's Beneteau 44.7 Tantrum jumped up into third place today and holds onto third overall. However they all will have to pull something out of the magicians hat if they are to topple Kukukerchu.

Being more at home on passage races, Jon Wardill's well traveled Cassidy 55 Australian Maid, again came to the fore today and secured the overall lead in the Premier Cruising class. Peter Forsythe and Jing Lee's X55 Xena, seems to travel in unison with Aussie Maid around the course but just not far enough in front to score a handicap win and therefore had to settle on second place and second overall after three races. Peter Churchhouse's Warwick 64 Moonblue 2 obviously needs the longer legs to get into the rhythm of things and as a result secured third place today.

Nigel Hopkins Oyster Lightwave 48 Celere broke through the barrier to convincingly win Race 3 and go directly to the top of the Bareboat/Cruising class. Although slow off the starting line, Scott Finisten's Oceanis 461 Andrew Short - Constanza fought back to slot into second place but drops them down to second overall. Third place again for the Singapore Management University (SMU) Team on the Sunsail 39 Bussakorn, skippered by Shaun Toh has them tied for third place overall with John Stall's Atkins 34 Smooth but based on this performance it won't be long until they overtake them.

In the Multihull class Kirati Assakul's (Nim) conventional Crowther 42 Sonic made it three wins out of three races and take a stranglehold in the overall stakes. Kim Thomas' bi-plane rigged catamaran Storm enjoyed the longer legs to jump up into second place, this time less than a minute in front of Kunta's (Samui Ocean Sports} Radical Bay Team Zazen that still holds onto second overall. Although Mick Grover's newly launched Yachting Siam 750 Mia Noi is sadly trailing the fleet there are already plans afoot to lengthen the masts and dramatically increase the sail area which should drastically improve their performance.

No big boat racing tomorrow as it is a layday, but there will be plenty of action on the golf course and in front of John Stall's Tradewinds as the junior sailors take to the water in the holly grail of dinghy sailing for the Samui Optimist Challenge.