BuyAssociation Lipton Trophy at Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club kicks off
by Vivian Ngan 30 Nov 2019 06:16 PST
30 November 2019
The BuyAssociation Lipton Trophy started with picture perfect blue sky, with a consistent seven to eight knots easterly breeze throughout the harbour.
Race Officer Gareth Williams opted for a Hung Hom start and elected to set the fleet around triangles and windward/leeward courses around Kowloon Bay and Tai Koo Shing.
Pursuit races work on each boat or Class of boats being given a different start time based on their handicap, which in a perfect race would result in all boats finishing at the same target time of 1630hrs. With 57 boats on the start line the first start was at 1400hrs with the Pandora fleet and the last boat to start was Ambush at 1504hrs.
During the start squence the wind started to strengthen to 14 to 15kts. Pandora Panopae holding off the faster yachts for the first big triangle lap to Tai Koo Shing before being overtaken by Ruffian Buster. Buster managed to maintain their lead until the finish at Hung Hom at 1626hrs. Impala Taxi crossed the finishing line in 2nd place followed by Flying Fifteen Forty Forte.
The BuyAssociation Lipton Trophy is the second of four events that make up the Top Dog Trophy Series 2019-2020. The first event was last weekend's Solaris Yachts Around the Island Race and the next two pursuit races are BuyAssociation HKRNVR Memorial Vase (29 February 2020) and BuyAssociation Tomes Cup (25 April 2020).
Top Results:
1st Buster Ruffian Nick Bryan
2nd Taxi Impala Dennis Chien
3rd Forty Forte Flying Fifteen Warwick Simons
1st Day Boat Easy Tiger Etchells Kaye / Watson / Norton
1st Big Boat Gambit Young 8.4 Keith Mowser
1st Inshore Keelboat Gnu Impala Randy Yeung