China Club Challenge Match - 2nd Half

by Alistair Skinner on 9 Oct 2010 22 teams, seven days of racing, around a dozen protests submitted (and 6 heard), close to 30 races completed, and three seminars run. I may be biased, but the Committee Boat team and the Umpires of the China Club Challenge Match should be as proud of their achievements as the eventual winner of the event.

One of the less usual elements of the CCCM is that on a number of the evenings the members of the umpire team run seminars on various aspects of sailing, with particular reference to match racing.

This year was no different, and in particular Tim Somerville (AUS) and Peter Backe (SWE) headlined to full houses on subjects that certainly didn’t fall on deaf ears, perhaps most noticeably on semi-finals day when dial-ups made their first appearance in the China Club Challenge Match. The additional skills being tried and tested by the competitors certainly kept the umpires busy - mostly with green flags it has to be said.

Other ‘trade’ for the umpire boats included that of being a fender when Xiamen Fei Peng hooked the anchor line of the Committee Boat and, as has happened before, Umpire Al had to stick his RIB in between a Flying Tiger and the big wooden CB to avoid damage to the former – useful things RIBs!

This wasn’t the only example of the anchor line ‘trick’ -Qingdao Santi did the same thing – coincidentally, in the same match, leaving Fei Peng to sail the course unopposed.

This, the repechage semi final, was certainly the most closely fought match of the event so far, and the best-of-five match went down to the very last race and had just about everything. First it looked as if the blue boat was winning, then the yellow, with the final result being decided by less than a boat length as both boats crossed the finish line carrying spinnakers and still overlapped.

This was not the closest finish of the day, however, as two universities - one from each side of the Taiwan Straits - took part in a Friendship Regatta in conjunction with the main event. ‘Friendship’ was certainly a good title for their add-on event when Taiwan became the latest victim of the anchor line - the Xiamen boat could have sailed off into the distance, but instead slowed right down and actually sailed back to the start line.

The Umpires and Race Committee in tandem decided to abandon that race and give the students another crack at it. This time all went well and the boats went round the course as if attached to each other by bungee cord. The finish was one to rival the final TNZ/Alinghi match at AC32, with perhaps 2-3 seconds separating the boats as they crossed the line.

The fifth day finished with the two finalists decided, and two very tired teams happy with their results so far – no, not any of the sailors, but the Umpires and Race Officers. By this stage of the regatta they had officiated over almost 30 races!

The following day the Challenger Final did not disappoint, with the final score line of 3-0 to Xiamen Fei Peng being somewhat misleading. Their opponents were not outclassed and the 3-0 result was a clear example of being head and shoulders above the rest making a disproportionate difference.

The pre-starts were sometimes aggressive, and also involved some running away, with the smallest of errors exaggerated into a one point loss but that is the sport of match racing.

The umpires were kept busy, but although incidents were plentiful, ‘trade’ in the form of actual penalties was remarkably limited.

The final kicked off with two easy wins by Xiamen Fei Peng over Sea Wolves from Shenzhen, and looked like it might just be a bit anti-climactic compared to what had just gone before with easy wins for Fei Peng, but whether Sea Wolves had a good night’s sleep, watched a couple of hours of America’s Cup pre-starts or just gave themselves a good talking to it was an entirely different story on day two of the final.

In the first two races Sea Wolves gave as good as they got and became the first team to match Fei Peng for upwind speed and shared the points with them bringing the score to 3-1.

With an early penalty against Xiamen in Race 5, and with the boats never more than 2-3 boat lengths apart in terms of distance to finish, it looked like Sea Wolves were about to bring the score back to 3-2. However, on port with the spinnaker up they allowed themselves to get too close to Fei Peng as the latter spun through the tack onto starboard to unwind their penalty.

The Xiamen team then dived towards Sea Wolves who were still on port and threw up the penalty flag. All this happened just a few boat lengths from the finish line, and the boats were across in 10-15 seconds.

The umpires were well positioned, with Tim and Peter slightly upwind and to the right, with Al and Li Li on the wing the other side of Sea Wolves. As this was the final, and this incident could decide the championship, an umpire conference was called.

This took some time, and the decision hung on whether Xiamen Fei Peng had come below 90 degrees to the wind before hailing Sea Wolves. The umpires knew they had to be sure – and decided that Fei Peng had correctly cleared their penalty and Sea Wolves had incurred a penalty. This was confirmed by video replay shortly afterwards.

The Championship was therefore awarded to Xiamen Fei Peng. Incidentally, it was the first time in the its six-year history of this event that the victorious team had ladies on board.

It is quite incredible how far this event has come in the four short years I have been involved in it. In your writer’s humble opinion, this is the number one event in the country when it comes to helping to actually developing sailing in China – sailing is a sport that can be played at all levels, and not only by professionals.

The spirit and fun that is sailing, and the true success of the China Club Challenge Match, is many-faceted. It includes the level of professionalism of the race management team (on the Committee Boat, the mark boats, and in the umpire boats). It includes is the feedback the sailors receive in ad hoc explanations, and in three evening seminars run by the umpires to polish and hone the sailors’ skills and understanding. It includes the social events, all totally inclusive, and covering all levels of formality. It includes the fact that the sailors know that the event is strictly policed to ensure fair play and fair sailing across the board.

It is THE event Chinese Corinthian sailors want to be at each year - and if used not so much as a format, but a model for the future and for more events in this country, then sailing in China could have very bright prospects indeed.