4:40 PM Sun 26 Jul 2009 GMT
Phuket Raceweek first-timer Ray Roberts and his regular crew - sailing the same trusty DK46, but now re-named 'Evolution Sails', today raced well enough to deny the Racing Division title to another PRW 'novice', Neil Pryde. But Roberts didn't have it all his own way - in sparkling sunshine and no more than 8 knots of breeze, Hi Fi and Team Pryde scored two bullets in front of Roberts' two second places (by 24 and 41 seconds respectively), leaving only just enough room for Roberts to win the 8-race series by a single point.
Until the results came out, Evolution tactician Steve McConaghy was 'quite sure' that they had beaten Hi Fi in both windward-leeward races. 'We were checking the deltas at every mark. we were ahead at the last mark of each race, and really thought we had it nailed. But not so - both times it was all about finishing the last run with pressure, calling the angle of the last gybe.' Never mind. Second place twice was enough to carry through last night's 3-point advantage for a regatta win.
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It had been a hot day on the water, and in the opposite camp, Pryde was smiling with a cold beer to hand. 'It's a smile of resignation,' he said. 'A poor-ish performance on the very first day (3, 2) had us playing catch up for the rest of the regatta. Today we had to try extra hard, and we had to do something special - two bullets was pretty good, but without another boat between us, it wasn't good enough!' Kevin 'Cozzie' Costin was equally philosophical about their narrow defeat. 'The standard here is higher than many people think, and the waters in and among the islands off the Evason Resort provide some very challenging race courses. It was a tough regatta, but very enjoyable, and it would be great to see more overseas entries at this event. We didn't take this event lightly at all - we ran our usual programme of getting out on the racecourse and sailing a full beat and run before the first race every day. If all the races had been decided at the first mark, we'd have won hands down!'
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In the next division down, IRC 1, four boats were contenders for honours at close of play yesterday. Leading the division, Jaray Tipsuk and his Thai crew just got better and better all through the regatta, and today nailed two bullets to the mast to walk away with a very well-deserved title. Competition in the IRC fleet was fierce all through the regatta, and time differences in the results were closer than any other division. Toshio Furuta's Mumm 36, Emma, sailed to no less than seven Line Honours' in eight races, but only one of them converted to a handicap win. In today's races Peter Dyer's Madame Butterfly (2, 3) and Niels Degenkolw's Phoenix (3, 2) went down to the wire scrapping for second and third places.
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In spite of declaring at the start of the week that 'I'm not going to be beaten by an Italian restaurant - even a floating one', Henry Kaye had to 'eat' his words as Alan Carwardine's Da Vinci Nina scored two more firsts today and put him firmly in his (second) place. Kaye was giving away a 30% time difference in a 100-minute race, and that was just too much. Maybe what Kaye needs is a new jib, like the one that propelled Hans Rahmann's Firefly 850 Voodoo round the track these past few days. With designer Mark Pescott on board (and a new super-jib) Rahmann dominated the Firefly division with seven firsts from eight races - and a third today. The division as a whole elected to drop their last race and head back to the Evason - there's not a lot of shade on a Firefly, and it was a hot, hot, hot day on the water.
The venerable Seraph put in another appearance today - the only entrant in the Classics class. She has 'raced' around the islands every day for the last four days and has, unsurprisingly, recorded first place in all her races.
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So there's another Phuket Raceweek done and gone. And it was undoubtedly a good one. The fleet numbers were down this year (31, against 45 in 2008) so 'Asia's fastest-growing regatta' may be a slightly optimistic tag-line for the event - but nevertheless, competitors were, without exception, full of praise for the event, the organisers, the race management, the parties, AND the weather! The original formula of 'one regatta, one venue' still holds good, and newcomers were heard to mention how good it is to come ashore and just walk along to Into the Beach for a cold beer. And not have to go halfway across Phuket to get to a prize-giving party. Camaraderie among the competitors was high, with some of the top crews swapping hints-and-tips with their opponents - something that doesn't happen at every regatta, and a possibly a good indicator of the atmosphere of this event.
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'There's always room for improvement in the race management,' admitted RO Simon James (although nobody had anything but compliments for his team). 'We probably used up all our lives going round Koh Bon this year,' he added, 'and setting new courses is always a challenge'. If, as James believes, 'the trick is to keep everyone moving, and get everyone a result in all the races' then he succeeded admirably. There were a total of two protests for the regatta, and neither of them was against the race committee, so there's no problem there. After four days of good breeze, good sunshine, good food and drink, good courses and some very close-run results, the Six Senses Phuket Raceweek certainly deserves to maintain its position as one of what Yachtstyle magazine recently dubbed 'Asia's Finest' regattas. Roll on 2010.
Full results at:
www.www.phuketraceweek.com/results2009/series_results.htm
by Guy Nowell, Sail-World Asia
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