AY Race Report 1

by AsianYachting MultiMedia on 6 Dec 2011 King's blessing produces blue sky and fair winds...

The days proceedings started with a sail past the Royal Thai Navy vessels anchored off Kata Beach to honour HM the King of Thailand's 84th birthday. Crews lined up on their yachts chanting three cheers, doffing their sailing caps and some even singing Happy Birthday. A parade of sail is an appropriate way for International sailors to pay homage to Thailand's sailing royal family that have supported yachting events all these years. After the sail past the boats continued on out to sea to begin Day 1. Blessed with ten knots of North Easterly breeze the Racing Classes got stuck into windward/leeward races and the Cruising Classes headed off around the islands to the SE of Phuket before finishing up back at Kata Beach.

Class IRC Zero is much about a technology race as it is boat speed. Optimising keels, rudders, sail shapes and masts between regattas, then going out and see if the changes have produced the desired results at the next regatta. In Race 1 thirteen seconds on corrected time separated Sam Chan's TP52 Freefire and Hannes Waimer TP52 Team Premier for first and second places. Race 2 was even closer with only three seconds separating Hannes Waimer's Team Premier and Neil Pryde's Welbourn 52 Hi Fi. Line honours in both races went to Frank Pong's 75’ Reichel Pugh, Jelik II but starting in the second row and blowing the spinnaker just after hoisting did not help the cause and finished up with two fourth places.

Japan's Yasuo Nanamori's Summit King 40 Karasu sprung a surprise by winning Race 1 in the super competitive IRC 1 class. Followed by two new Ker designs - David Ross' Ker 40 KukuKERchu and Steve Manning's Sydney GTS 43 Walawala 2 straight out of the box. After being recalled in Race 1, Fred Kinmonth/Nick Burns Mills 40 EFG Bank Mandrake rebounded with first place in Race 2. After handicaps have been applied Ben Copley's Swan CS 42 Katsu supporting a new set of One Sails missed out by three seconds and Jonathan Mahony's Humphreys 42 Zanzibar a further two seconds adrift in third place. Judging by the close results the title will be determined by the wind strength favouring one boat or the other and is expected to go down to the wire.

Honouring the King's birthday the Royal Thai Navy 1 skippered CPO.1 Wiwat Poonpat took the honours in Race 1. Never far off the pace Peter Dyer's Humphrys 3/4 tonner Team Kata Rock scored second place and went on to win Race 2 to take the overall lead in IRC 2. Fully fired up Bill Bremner's Ker 32 Foxy Lady 5 secured third and second places to be close behind and ready to pounce. Arbuzov Andrey's Russian team on Ruby Tuesday filled third spot and the juggling of the places compresses the points difference in the top six boats.

In their first Premier Cruising Class appearance Richard Dobbs Swan 68 Titania of Cowes made good use of the fresh morning breeze to take out the daily double. Although Peter Sorenson's smaller Beneteau F53 Baby Tonga - Team Strongbow finished a whooping forty four minutes behind them, they managed to leap frog several bigger boats into second place. China's Wang Bin's magnificent Swan 82 Chao Ren Plus One, slotted into third place and happy with their first race at the King's Cup.

Aquacraft Asia's Hanse 545 Odin also scored the daily double in the Cruising Class. The fading wind toward the finish saw William Sax's Fraser 41 Astraeus slot into second place and Jack Cristensen's Bavaria 49 Linda from the United States in third place.

The Bareboat Charter Class saw Aussie Mike Crisp's Hanse 400e Venture come to the fore on handicap. Despite leading the fleet home Oliver Heer's Beneteau 47.7 Sail Plane ended up in second and Michael Phillips Feeling 1090 TAG being one of the smallest boats slipped into third place.

All five boats in the Modern Classic Class sailed in close company. At the end of the race Peter Wood's Commanche 42 Windstar edged into the lead and won the race. Never far behind Kevin Gillow's S&S 30 Poco slowed toward the end but still managed to secure second place. Nicholas Smith's Ericson 38 Freewind held on for third place.

The Firefly 850 Sports one design class, saw Roger Kingdon's Moto Inzi win two races, defending champion Hans Rahmann's Voodoo two second places and John Newnham's Twin Sharks follow suite with two third places and end up in the same order in the overall stakes.

Three yachts shared the honours in the hotly contested Multihull Class. David Roberts Andaman Cabriolet Davinci skippered by Mick Coleman claimed Race 1 but dropped to third in Race 2. Line honours went to Alan Carwardine's Stealth 12.6 Sidewinder in both races but was relegated to second in Race 1 and managed to hold their time and win Race 2 to take the overall lead. Defending champion David Liddel's Corsair 37 Miss Saigon opened the series with a 3, 2 scoreline to be in hot pursuit.

Racing continues tomorrow with Race Day 2 hosted by Singha Corporation and Haadthip PLC.

More info and results on the 2011 King's Cup at: http://www.kingscup.com.