Series Results Settled On Day Four of 2010 King’s Cup Regatta

by Event Media on 11 Dec 2010 Day four of the 2010 Phuket King’s Cup Regatta delivered drama in several of the classes. For some it was time to kick back, relax and bask in the glory of a series victory while for others the regatta would go right to the wire.

There will be racing on Saturday but the classes will be combined and the results will not count towards the overall series, meaning that the outcome of Friday’s racing would prove decisive in determining the series winners.

Matt Allen’s Ichi Ban was able to take the final day off for the second year in a row after securing victory in the IRC 1 class. Hans Rahmann’s Voodoo was in a similar position in the Firefly 850 class but chose to compete anyway.

One class which is guaranteed to produce drama is IRC 2. There tends to be little to separate Peter Dyer’s Madame Butterfly, now known as Sea Bees, and CPO.1 Wiwat Poonpat’s Royal Thai Navy 1. This year proved to be no exception with both boats tied on nine points going into the final day. It was Sea Bees which eventually secured the series win courtesy of a first place finish in race 7.

The win was particularly sweet for Dyer who had been denied victory in 2009 after Royal Thai Navy 1 registered a pair of bullets on the final day,

'It's fantastic. It's been a good week. Last year we started fast and finished slowly. This year we started slowly in the first race but we got better everyday. We knew if we won the first race today it was all over and the wind was kind to us. You can never write Royal Thai Navy 1 off, I don’t think their boat is any better than ours, I don't think there equipment is any better than ours it is down to the way they sail and they sail it very, very well. I said at the start of the week there would only be a point in it and I’m looking forward to racing against them again next year,' he said

Ray Robert’s Evolution Racing had already wrapped up victory in the Racing Class after a dramatic days racing on Wednesday which featured a dead heat between Evolution Racing and Neil Pryde’s Hi Fi.

Had Hi Fi been a split second faster they would still have been in contention on the final day but as it was Evolution Racing had the luxury of knowing the series was won regardless of the outcome of the final race. It was a good day for Sam Chan’s Free Fire which ended Evolution Racing and Hi Fi’s monopoly on first place finishes after beating Hi Fi by less than a minute on corrected time. The result secured third spot for Free Fire ahead of King’s Cup veteran Frank Pong on Jelik III.

With the series victory Roberts and the crew of Evolution Racing soared into the lead in the Asian Yachting Grand Prix. They also gained revenge after losing out to Hi Fi last year and Roberts felt the dead heat in race 6 was the defining moment of the regatta, “Had it not been for the dead heat it would have been much more nervous today, there would have been a lot of pressure on but that’s sailing. People lose gold medals at the Olympic Games because of millimeters. It’s a tight business particularly when you have two very competitive boats and two very competitive skippers and crews, it’s always going to be a case of millimeters so it’s nail biting stuff,” he said.

Roberts was also quick to hail the efforts of everyone involved in organizing the regatta and is looking forward to the final day’s racing, which will not count towards the overall King’s Cup series, “Throughout the week we’ve had quite reasonable wind and it has been a really good close racing. I thought the courses were good and made for fair competition. It was good sailing and a good fun regatta, that’s why we all love to come here. We’re going to relax and have some fun tonight but we will still line up tomorrow and take the race seriously,” he said.

The Premier Class provided an action packed finish with Peter Sorenson’s Baby Tonga and Peter Forsythe & Jing Lee’s Xena tied on six points. This made the fifth and final race of the series decisive and in the end Baby Tonga prevailed by less than a minute on corrected time.

There was also final day drama in the Multihull Class. David Liddell’s Miss Saigon went into the final day with a slender one point advantage over last year’s winner, Fergus Wilmer and Henry Kaye’s Thor. A first place finish for Thor in the opening race of the day left the two boats tied on points with Miss Saigon only ahead courtesy of more first place finishes. This meant that Thor needed to beat Miss Saigon in the final race to retain the title. It was close, with less than a minute between the boats on corrected time, but in the end Miss Saigon prevailed finishing the race third with Thor in fourth.

Liddell and his crew on Miss Saigon were under the impression they had missed out and he was delighted to return to shore and discover the series was his, “We thought that they had beaten us on the final day because they were a long way ahead of us and we didn’t have time to do any timing because it was a pretty full on race with lots of wind. I’m absolutely thrilled because we have come second the last two years and we’ve been just behind Thor in all the other regattas and we’ve put a huge amount of work into the boat to try and make it go as quickly as possible and it all worked out. I have to admit we were not terribly confident going into the regatta but we thought we had a chance,” he said.

Kevin Whitcraft, President of the 24th Phuket King's Cup Regatta Organizing Committee, feels that the racing has been particularly competitive this year,

“The 2010 Phuket King’s Cup has provided some of the most exciting racing in the regatta’s history. The dead heat between Evolution Racing and Hi Fi in race six just goes to show how slim the margins between success and failure really are. There was less than half a second separating the two boats after the time had been adjusted meaning that this was one race where every second really did count,” he said.

He is also looking forward to an extra days racing tomorrow which he feels will add another dimension to the 2010 Phuket King’s Cup Regatta,

“This year the Saturday will consist of three races, one for the combined IRC fleet, one for the combined Multihull fleet and one for the Classic Class. This gives boats a good opportunity to see how they fare against competitors who they would never normally get to race against and should make for an enjoyable and exciting final day. It will also give everyone who is disappointed at missing out on silverware in the series one last shot at a regatta win,” he said.

The first King’s Cup took place in 1987 to mark the 60th birthday of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyedej and the Regatta has been held in the first week of December ever since.

The Phuket King's Cup Regatta runs from December 4th - 11th 2010 under the Royal Patronage of His Majesty the King. The Regatta is organised by the Phuket King's Cup Regatta Organizing Committee under the auspices of the Royal Varuna Yacht Club, in conjunction with the Yacht Racing Association of Thailand, the Royal Thai Navy and the Province of Phuket.

Sponsors of the 2010 Phuket King's Cup Regatta include Kata Group Resorts Thailand, Siam Winery, Chang Beer, Kata Rocks, Centara Grand Beach Resort Phuket, Mom Tri's Boathouse and The Moorings. Media Partners include Blue Wave 90.5FM, Helm Superyacht Asia Pacific, Helicam Asia, Indigo Media, Multihull World, The Nation, Phuket Gazette, Prestige Thailand, Sail-World.com and YACHTstyle.

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