Although being pushed into third place for these races, with five points in their favor at the start, Merlin won the series overall, with R2B2 second and Phoenix in third place.
Fly By Wire had excellent results for the last four races, coming first or second in each race, but because she did not compete in the earlier races, she ended up in seventh place. But wonderful sailing when she did take part.
Merlin did particularly well in winning five of the 11 races, but she was often hard pressed by R2B2.
“It was not my series, my daughter [Jade] sailed 50 per cent of the races. She did not always do the difficult bits, but as a beginner she has done exceptionally well,” Steve Bourne of Merlin told The Epoch Times.
“We got beaten by two boats twice today and it was very tight in the series. You did not know where the wind was coming from—it was all over the place and incredibly difficult sailing conditions, and because of that it was a tight finish in the series. Dion [Houghton of R2B2] was doing really well and he beat us in both races so there was only 3 points between us,” he explained.
Bourne went on to sum up the series.
“Fantastic racing. Fantastic sponsor. Because the sponsors really make it and we would not be here if we did not have such good sponsors. So a big thank you to them,” Bourne said.
HKPN Division
HKPN Division was the largest division with 18 boats entered. Hakawati, Jive and Epekwit were the first three home in Race 11, with Epekwit taking line honors. In Race 12, the provisional order on calculated time is Hakawati, Epekwit and J Chi, with J Chi taking line honors.
Tara won the series on 33 points, with Jive (Eliza Yeung) second and Kiasu third.
Three boats finished on 36 points, Jive, Kiasu and X-Terminator, and final placing was decided on the better performances in the early races as set out in the ISAF Racing Rules of Sailing.
Kiasu did particularly well throughout the series by taking line honors five times.
Dragon Division
In the final races for Dragon Division, Kamaloong, Mei Fei, Zephyr finished first, second and third, respectively, in Race 11. Mei Fei, Eaux Vives, Moonraker II were the respective top three in Race 12.
Zephyr won the series with brilliantly consistent sailing, achieving four wins out of nine races, Eau Vives was second and Moonraker II was third. Dragons competed in only nine races as no boats turned out on Race Day 3 so no discards were allowed.
