The Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club Spring Regatta held in Victoria Harbour on Saturday and Sunday May 18-19 attracted nearly 100 boats covering 10 Classes. As usual there was a lot of disruption by ferry boats, cruise ships and barges, which caused complexities to the racing.
After heavy rain on the previous day, conditions over the weekend were good, with partly cloudy skies and wind varying up to 14 knots. The regatta comprised three races in total, one on Saturday and two on Sunday, with between 5 and 13 boats per class.
Many of the usual favourites came to the fore, even after misjudging their starts.
Big Boats 1
Peninsula Signal 8 misjudged the start twice, but still managed to head the Big Boats-1 category for the regatta.
Meanwhile, Ambush came in second and Mojito was third in the class. Having faltered at the start of the third race, Signal 8, remarkably, still rounded the windward mark ahead of most of the other competitors.
Big Boats 2
In Big Boat-2 Class, it was Anthony Root’s Red Kite II that leads the regatta standings completing each of the three races with remarkable consistency. Her elapsed times of between 1:10:07 and 1:12:42 produced three straight wins to the line and wins on corrected times.
Vixen, although pushed into third place twice and a little way behind on 8 points, had a similarly consistent performance, completing the course in times of between 1:14:30 and 1:15:26.
Gambit came in third just one point behind Vixen.
Dragon, Etchells, and Flying Fifteens
Eaux Vives won the Dragon Class followed by Celines and Fei Chi.
Nick Burns in Gunga Din put in another fine performance in the Etchells Class to just snatch victory ahead of Mark Thornburrow on Dream On (both finishing on 7 points), with David Mead in Easy Tiger third.
In the Flying Fifteens, French Fries took the regatta with seven points ahead of Tomfoolery (9) and No Name, who were equal on points (13) to Sam Chan’s Noisy Forefather II.
Tchaikoffsky, normally a front runner, was down the order in seventh place having been a bit too eager and “On Course Side” at the start of Race-3.
J/80 and Impalas
In the J/80 Class, Sea Biscuit came out on top at the expense of Footloose and Tigrina, who both retired from Race-1, but were well up the order in races two and three.
There was a good turnout of Impala Class boats, with Mike Burrell’s Impala I coming out on top with six points, while Taxi and Rainbow Chaser came second and third, respectively.
Ruffian, Pandora and Magic 25’s
Victory 9 won the Ruffian Class ahead of Schannuleke, with Picaro third.
Five Pandora’s took part, with Windfall just edging the overall win from Solstice and Panache coming in third.
Steve Bourne in Merlin just missed out to Frank van Kempen in Fly By Wire in the Magic 25’s. Black Magic came third.
Next Events
Hebe Haven Summer Saturday Series starts this coming Saturday May 25 and the Hebe Haven Typhoon Series commences on Sunday June 2.
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