Raja Muda Regatta 2009 - Hi Fi
The 20th Raja Muda regatta in Malaysia this year was one of the best in recent years. There was an awesome fleet of racing boats including five 50-53 footers, Jelik and the little Farr 11s "Tazo" and the breeze was up for most of the races.
As always the regatta was a travelling roadshow moving north up the coast from Port Klang near KL, staying for one night at the island resort of Pangkor, three nights in the heritage city of Georgetown, Penang and the final couple of days on the island of Langkawi near Thailand.
I couldn't make it to the 85nm first leg on saturday but the Hi Fi team had a close race with Evolution Racing (former Island Fling tp52) all the way and narrowly beat them across the line to win the race on handicap. From all the reports it rained most of the race but luckily our team was outfitted with the new neil pryde sailing wear (www.neilprydesailing.com) so the guys stayed dry and focused!!
This was a great start considering the boat had been struck by lightning in Singapore only ten days before the regatta frying all the electronics...
Leg 2 from Pangkor and the challenge was just getting off the beach! With an unusual (for this place) rolling swell breaking on the beach and driving rain and wind the tenders had a hard time delivering crew and gear to the boats on time. We started after all the classic and cruising classes in about 18-20kn of breeze slightly cracked on port. Heading through the slower fleets and watching them struggle in these conditions with broken sails and sails overboard(!) it was clear these were exceptional conditions for Malaysian sailing. It was a close drag race again between us and Evolution for most of the day until later in the afternoon the breeze got funky and it was anyone's game. At first we had the upper hand with our A5 the better sail over their zero but as the sun set there were some seriously big shifts and the lead changed a couple of times before the finish. Once again we emerged narrowly ahead and posted another win. It was a long motor under the bridge to the Georgetown marina but someone had snuck a couple of bottles of rum onboard to help warm us up....
After a day off in Penang with trishaw racing and the now traditional Hi Fi Indian feast, it was time to line up for some windward leeward racing on the north eastern side of the island. Unfortunately there was no breeze all day and we motored back into the marina with no races completed. The race committee promised to try to run the races in Langkawi on what would usually be another day off.
Leg 3 from Penang to Langkawi is about 55nm, it's usually a bit of a drag race with the breeze about 90-110 true wind angle, perfect for jib and staysail reaching. This year was slightly different with lots of sail changes off the start from a5 to a3 and back again it was busy for the first couple of hours. Again a close race with Evolution and they seemed to get the upper hand when the breeze freed up a bit and they hoisted a jib top, a sail which we weren't carrying for this regatta. We closed up a bit to them at the finish when they went back to a headsail and they only finished about 1m20s ahead of us, not enough to beat us on handicap. A quick leg this year and we were in to the Langkawi Yacht Club about 8pm for beers and dinner.
So after the first three legs we'd had three wins to Evolution's three seconds, the rest of the boats being a fair way behind. Everyone was looking forward to the next two days of windward leewards with a closely matched fleet of boats squaring up for the first time this season.
Friday morning and the breeze was in, we had a great warm up/tuning session before the two races. The racing was a bit of a blur to be honest, but suffice to say there was some close sailing between us and Ray Roberts' team on Evolution, with the Strewth, Ffreefire and Foxy Lady mixing it up as well. We ended the day with a 1, 2 while Ray had a 3, 1 so we were heading into the final day with a four point lead. As anyone who has sailed in Kuah harbour knows, anything could happen with the shifty breeze coming down off the big hills so the big trophies were still there for the taking.
On Saturday the breeze in Langkawi was much lighter. It was overcast and rainy as the first race started. Whether it was nerves or we were just having a bad day, we had our worst result for the regatta in this race, with both Jelik and Evolution beating us. As we lined up for the last race the trophy was still up for grabs. We were over early and in getting back to the start we infringed on Mandrake so were ready to do some turns. Things weren't looking good as the rest of the fleet raced away!! But luckily the breeze completely glassed out at the top mark and the race was abandoned. After waiting around for another hour and the breeze not cooperating the regatta was finished and we had managed to hold onto our lead.
For the second year in a row Hi Fi had won the Raja Muda Selangor regatta. Awesome!!
The prizegiving was a copy of last year at the Langkawi Yacht Club and finished with us drinking champagne from the impressive trophy....
