Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club (RHKYC) has been exceptionally busy of late with national and international competitions running one after another. This last weekend was no exception with two races – the Lipton Trophy and the Round the Island race—part of the Top Dog series.
To cap off three weeks of intense activity, RHKYC has just hosted an International Commodores’ Forum over the last few days.
The Commodores Forum attracted Yacht Club Commodores and Vice Commodores from more than 30 yacht clubs around the globe to hold discussions on a wide range of topics concerning the running of clubs and the organisation and running of sailing competitions.
Flying Fifteens World Championship
The Hong Kong hosted Flying Fifteens 19th World Championship was won by Graham Vials and Chris Turner of Great Britain in Foof. After recording four first places, one second and a fifth, for a total score of 11 after six races, they were in an unbeatable position (one discard allowed) and did not take part in the seventh race.
Nick and Janet Jerwood of Australia in Ineffable came second on 15 points; while Grant Alderson and Dean McAullay, also of Australia, in El Toro came third.
British and Australian sailors shared the top 10 places, five by each country.
Top Dog Series
The Zerort+ Top Dog Series 2013-2014 organised by the RHKYC kicked off with the Lipton Trophy on Saturday Nov 9 and was followed the next day Sunday Nov 10 with the Tommy Bahama Round the Island Race.
Of the 33 starters in the Lipton Trophy, 28 finished the race and 7 of the top 10 finishers were Etchells, 2 were Flying Fifteens and, the only big boat to feature, Ambush in ninth place.
Mark Thomburrow skipper of Dream On got off to a winning start in the series followed by L Mead in Freelance. and Nieto and Flemo in No Name finished in third place.
Weather conditions stirred up by the periphery of Typhoon Haiyan worsened overnight with winds whipping up to 15 to 18 knots at the start of the Round the Island Race in Victoria Harbour.
With two to three metre seas accompanied by over 25knot winds on the exposed sides of the Hong Kong Island, many of the 258 entries decided not to compete. But it was still a big field for the event with 169 boats completing the course.
The weather conditions were ideal for the catamaran Aberdeen Extreme 40 in its attempt to break the Cariad Trophy record for the 26 Nm race of 2:41:57 set by Dennis Wong on a Hobie 21 Force 8 in Dec 1990. Aberdeen Extreme 40 met her objective by completing the race by eclipsing the record in 2:13:11.
Aberdeen Extreme 40 starting at 10.00am – 30 minutes after Frank Pong’s 72ft Mini Maxi Jelik and Sam Chan’s TP 52 FreeFire – just caught FreeFire at the finish, but had to settle for second place on the water to Jelik who also beat the previous record with an elapsed time of 2:29:29.
On ATI (a special handicap for this race) adjusted time 29er, a dinghy helmed by Cosmas Grelcon, came first; followed by Sea School Old Boy, with Wan Chi Wai at the helm; Flying Fifteen Tchaikoffsky came third; and Etchells Wanchai Belle came fourth. For the full results see www.rhkyc.org.hk.
HKPN boats are excluded from the ATI result list and race under HKPN ratings. The winners in this category were Simplicity, followed by Barracuda, Thea and No One Else was fourth.
Because of the conditions records were broken in many boat classes.
The other two events in the Top Dog Series are the Tomes Cup on Mar 1, 2014 and the HKRNVR Pursuit Race on May 3, 2014.
Next Race
Hebe Haven Winter Saturday series resumes this coming Saturday Nov 16.
