It's all about looking good at the China Coast 08
There was a seriously 'quality' fleet out there today for the opening races of the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club's flagship event, the Total Lubmarine China Coast Regatta. Just six boats contributed 325' LOA to the IRC Div A, from Frank Pong's evergreen and much-optimised RP75 Jelik down to Chris Meads' impossibly shiny Corby 43, Full Metal Jacket. And in between there two TP 52s (Highland Fling and FfreeFire 52), Fortis Mandrake (Mills 51) and Neil Pryde's Hi Fi (Welbourne 52).
'RHKYC China Coast Regatta 2008. Men At Work (of course!)'
Guy Nowell © Click Here to view large photo
Starting along with IRC Div B - which included the hardly-used Ambush (Mills 41) belonging to Joachim 'Cracking' Isler and Drew Taylor, as well as Paul Bankowski's Ker 11.3, Rick Strompf's brand new X-41 Orient Express and Rland Buser's resuscitated Sydney 38 sTELLa (well, that's how it looks) - the combined effect along with the other seven boats in the division was one of a real grown up regatta. Where else in Asia can summon a racing fleet like that? - Phuket King's Cup maybe, but that depends on all those boats heading south like a flock of swallows. 
Once again, the home of the best racing fleet in Asia was shown to be Hong Kong, and all the other regional regattas are heavily reliant on Hong Kong boats to give them real credibility - but what a pity the few other racing boats in the region rarely/never seem to make it up to Hong Kong for the no 1 big boat regatta of the year...
First race today was a warm-up windward/leeward, starting in 10 kts of northeasterly breeze on something like flat water. The breeze built to somewhere close to 15 kts, so it was a quick canter round the cans for all concerned, and many found the race to be a bit of a shake-down cruise. Bart Kimman (Miss Salona II, Salona 42) was very sanguine about a 10th place in a 12 boat division - 'You spend all summer sailing in six knots, and then it pipes up to 10 knots and everyone starts pulling the wrong ropes!' he said later. 'We'll do better tomorrow - promise.'
Frank Pong's Jelik took off like a boat on a mission - which she was - and scored line and handicap honours for the opening race. It wasn't quite such an easy race for Ambush, who tried a new 'wrap the spinnaker around the top batten' manoeuvre which proved to be a great way of shredding the kite. 'Irreparable' was the word used - and there were a few others too. 
Maximum entertainment in race 1 was provided by the foredeckie on Dexter who stopped for a smoko and suddenly found himself upside down outside the lifelines and hanging on for dear life (see separate photo story).
Second race of the day was an islands course away up to and around TCS2, Po Toi and Beaufort and back to a finish of Stanley. It was straightforward on the way up, with Jelik leading and Paul Winkelmann's TP52 Highland Fling hot on her heels - but on the way back Fling went higher and closer to Hong Kong than the rest of the fleet and sailed into softer breeze, allowing her competitors to get back in the frame. 'Full Metal Jacket' had a slow start to the event, with two last-place finishes, but owner Chris Meads says he is not unduly concerned. 'We had some teething troubles - nothing serious, but we threw away a good first race, and didn't hit the pace on the second.' (All FMJ crew are now subject to curfew). 
In Div B 'Ambush' scored 1, 1 from two races, and in Div C Helmut Hennig's new A35 'Men At Work' made a very businesslike start to the regatta by doing the same thing. On board 'Ambush' the word from Dave Ullman was 'flawless'. He went on to explain - 'Winning races is all about not making those unforced errors. It went like clockwork' (and we won't ask about that shredded kite...). On board Fortis Mandrake, RHKYC Commodore Warwick Downes was happy with 3, 1 finishes. 'There were a couple of blemishes on an otherwise perfect day,' he said. 'For the very first time ever, the Mandrake crew went out and practised yesterday - and I don't think it has done us any harm.' 
There were one or two Hong Kong fleet stalwarts missing from today's racing - we heard that more than one boat lost crew because of the current ongoing financial crisis - one banking-type sailor was reported to have been worried that if he didn't turn up at the office today he might not have a job on Monday. Ouch, that's a nasty dose of reality.
Blue skies (well, 'Hong Kong blue' anyway) and good steady breeze makes the fleet happy - forecast for the next two days says 'the northeast monsoon is expected to strengthen in the next couple of days'. Wind building to force 5 and a 2m swell. Hold on to your hats, this regatta is only going to get better.
Full results at www.rhkyc.org.hk/chinacoastraceweek/results08.htm
by Guy Nowell, Sail-World Asia 
Click on thumbnails to enlarge and find more photos:
Bermagui, NSW
