Phuket King's Cup 2022
by Phuket King's Cup Media 8 Dec 2022 07:32 PST
5-10 December 2022
Shatoosh. Phuket King's Cup 2022 © Guy Nowell / Phuket King's Cup
It was the third day of racing for the keelboats and multihulls, and all five classes were sent on windward-leewards for the first two races, with the Premier and Cruising classes getting an extra coastal race as well.
The two TP52s (Team Hollywood and THA 72) continued their battle of the titans on the water today with some very close racing, at times being less than a boat’s length apart. But as sails were folded it was Ray Roberts’ Team Hollywood which claimed both victories in the class, giving it a three-point lead over Tom Whitcraft’s THA 72 with two days of racing left to go. Sarab Jeet Singh and Nick Burns’ Windsikher finished third in both races. Both races were squeaky close, with Team Hollywood winning the first race by just three seconds on corrected time – you can’t ask for any closer racing than that.
In the IRC One class the day belonged to Kazuki Kihara’s Char Chan, which won both races, with Craig Douglas’ Ramrod coming in second twice and Garry Holt’s Let’s Get It On finishing third and third. Actually, both races had a repeat finish order, with Morten Jakobsen’s Hanuman XXXIX scoring fourth twice, Matti Sepp’s Judy in fifth twice, and with Craig Nichols Alright sixth, twice, by virtue of not racing due to crew illness. After three days of racing this class is exceptionally close, with Ramrod leading by one point over Let’s Get It On and two points over Char Chan.
In the Premier Cruising class, the crew on the Thai-owned X-55 Pine Pacific wore their distinctive purple crew shirts with the number 89 on the back in Thai numerals; the age King Bhumibol was when he passed away in 2016. Skippered by Ithinai Yingsiri, they took home two firsts and a second today, with Peter Cremers’ elegant Shatoosh claiming victory in the second race by 13 seconds on corrected time. Simon Piff’s Firstlight came third in all three races. Pine Pacific won race three on corrected time although Shatoosh was first over the line.
Commenting after the race, Khun Ithinai said, “We got off to a good start in the first race which had winds blowing at 18 knots, and settling down to 12. Our second start was not as good but we rebounded with a good start again in race three. Overall, we were quite happy with our performance as we haven’t sailed together as a crew since the last King’s Cup in 2019 and we were obliged to use our cruising sails, which are ten years old!”
The Cruising Class saw Jakod Handte’s Fei Jian win the first race followed by Torben Kristensen’s Kinnon and Masami Yamashita’s Inlova. In the second race, Kinnon collided with Hermann Schwarz’ 2Fast4you, forcing both boats out of competition for the rest of the day. As a result, Fei Jian and Inlova went one, two, in races two and three. Fei Jian is leading the class with five points, followed by Kinnon with eight and Inlova in third with ten.
The Multihull OMR class saw Hang Chen’s ZOE finally claim a win as they took race two on the day (race four in this series) when Hermann Schwarz’ 2Fast4you stopped racing as a result of its collision with Kinnon. 2Fast4you leads the class by three points heading into the lay day.
Marco Polo was said to have opined that Phuket was the most beautiful island he visited on his journeys, and following the King’s Cup fleet you get a sense of the grandeur the Venetian merchant experienced many centuries ago. That pristine beauty is still there, and is the reason why Phuket remains one of the world’s great holiday destinations.
The regatta has long enticed foreign sailors to the Andaman Sea playground, and though it still serves that purpose it now plays a huge role in the development of youth sailing in Thailand as evidenced by the 182 entries in the dinghy classes, which finished their four-day racing series yesterday.
Sponsors of the Phuket King’s Cup Regatta include the Kata Group, the RMA Group, Haad Thip PCL. and Workforce International.
For full results, please visit https://www.kingscup.com/result