Phuket King’s Cup Regatta Day 2 - Business as usual, and some scenery
by Guy Nowell, Sail-World Asia 5 Dec 2017 08:23 PST
2-9 December 2017
An unseasonal lack of sunshine, but there was breeze all day, with 14-16kts to start with and never less than 8kts by the close of proceedings. Today the racing went south round the end of Phuket, and through the sprinkle of islands leading all the way round to Cape Panwa. "If you have islands, use 'em." It makes a pleasant and scenic change from the windward/leeward courses, gives the biggest boats some distance over which to stretch their legs.
To keep the navigators alert, the outgoing tide (at the beginning of the day) and its return later on provides a tactical challenge as tricky as anything you'll find in the Solent. While the waters of the Bay of Bengal move south, and the contents of Phang Nga Bay join in from the east side of Phuket, reading the tidal patterns through the islands is truly make-or-break stuff.
All Cruising classes went off a reaching start heading for the Koh Kaeo Noi gate, where many of them found that a hard left turn towards Koh Bon was not a good idea as they tried to cross the tide. Boats standing on from the gate before heading east fared a good deal better on the race track. Popping out between Koh Hi and Koh Aeo, and with the breeze lessening somewhat, the homeward journey turned into another trip against the tide, even if there was a good deal less of it on the return journey.
With breeze to spare, PRO Ross Chisholm set the Racing classes a quick two-sausage windward/leeward to keep up the numbers on the scorecard, and then sent everyone away to either the Panwa Safe Water Mark (IRC 0) or the eastern end of Koh Aeo, through a series of timing gates, 'just in case' the breeze died out (which it didn't). All in all, a very straightforward day's racing.
Kevin Whitcraft (THA72, TP52) continues to dominate the IRC 0 division with a further two wins, and after a DSQ earned for trying to snag Shenzhen Seawolf with her spinnaker yesterday, Yasuo Nanamori's Karasu is back on top of the IRC 1 division – sharing the points with Matti Sepp's thoroughly well-sailed Swan 45 Club, Loco. A win in the long race today puts Nick Burns' Otonomos Mandrake III just one point behind the joint leaders.
Yesterday's collision between the Firefly 850s Twin Sharks and Surf patrol has left the latter substantially out of action, but after "a bit of filler and she'll buff out nicely," Twin Sharks came back with two wins for the day. After three bullets yesterday, Henry Kaye took a day off to rest on his laurels (fair enough, Henry!) and handed over his slot on Thor to Mark Pescott. That didn't slow anything down, as Thor collected two more wins in Multihull Racing, completing the long course in a shade under three hours and allowing the crew plenty of time to adjourn for a long lunch in Nai Harn afterwards.
The forecast for tomorrow promises 13kts at start time, and 8ts in the afternoon – plenty to play with (but some real sunshine would be nice).
Standing by on 72.
For more information, and full results, please visit www.kingscup.com