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....

Winter 09

Ok so there haven't been many updates on my blog for a while. But to get back up to speed I'm posting a couple of vids and pics of what I've been up to lately. Namely the Wild Joe tour north to Hamilton Island, Phuket Race Week and sail testing in Samui.

In early July we had an awesome trip up to Hamilton Island with the 950nm trip taking just four days. Not bad for a delivery we reckon!

Later on in July was a new regatta for the Hi Fi team, the Phuket Race Week. A small regatta hosted out of the Evason Resort on the southern tip of Phuket. It was a great combination of island passage races and windward leeward sprints. Unfortunately we were narrowly beaten by Ray Roberts and his team on the DK46. As always though we learned heaps and had some good ideas for future mods to the boat.

After the spectacular that was Audi Hamilton Island Race Week on the Wild Joe and getting the boat back to Sydney it was time to head back up to Thailand for some sail testing and a party to celebrate Neil Pryde's birthday. Koh Samui was the venue and despite the light breezes we got some valuable sailing in and prepared the boat for the coming regattas in Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore.

More updates to come soon from the Raja Muda regatta in Malaysia.

Sam out.

Hi Fi gybing

For the Samui regatta we installed Harken's new dual chain pedestal drive system into our existing primary winch and pedestal system. It gave us a superfast first gear for gybing and improved our boat handling markedly. Although the video below doesn't show one of our best gybes, it does illustrate the impressive speed at which the kite sheet now comes in.....

Samui Regatta 2009 - Hi Fi

I've spent the last week racing with the Hi Fi team at the Koh Samui regatta, the final event for the 08-09 Asian Yachting Championship.

The Hi Fi team and yacht have come a long way since our woeful showing at the China Coast Cup in Hong Kong in October. With the new Hall Spars NZ rig installed before the Raja Muda regatta the boat took on a new lease of life and we've had some great results.

Samui was an awesome regatta this year, there was wind and a good turnout of some of Asia's best racing boats.

Day 1 was a long day, the race committee obviously keen to get races in while the breeze was up. Sailing off Chaweng beach under the big hills, there were some massive shifts, and we were happy to come away from the day with a third and two firsts. Some of our competition were not quite so lucky and so we had a good jump on the fleet.

Day 2 was a long passage race around the corner to the north of the island. After a reach across to Koh Pangan, we headed upwind back to Samui before a long run and reach to the finish. Frank Pong's Boracay of course took line honours but we weren't far behind and ended up with a first on handicap, extending our lead over the fleet, with Ichi Ban and Quantum in second and third.

Wednesday we did a windward leeward and also a long race towards the south of the island. With great starts again and picking the shifts well in both races we put two more wins on the board. Neil and the talented afterguard (pictured below) had reason to smile as the regatta would be very hard to lose with the big lead we had built up.

There were also some big smiles at the magnificent Nikki Beach party on the night before Thursday's lay day..... Thursday was a lay day before racing resumed on Friday. With the good breezes earlier in the week and a decent forecast for Friday the race committee committed to running a course round the island of Samui. Being approximately 40nm long this was ambitious but would bring the event and its sponsors some publicity, apart from being a good test for the fleet. The cruising classes were allowed a flexible start time while our racing class started as usual at ten am with a time limit of eight and a half hours....

The breeze was meant to be above ten knots and for the first few hours it was but started to get patchy as we set kites down the west side of the island. Hi Fi was in a great position just in front of Foxy Lady and Ffree Fire and not far behind Boracay before Foxy Lady passed us offshore and gradually extended. The breeze got lighter and lighter and as we rounded the north west tip of the island it was only the favourable current that kept us going. A short lived rain squall promised much but after blowing for fifteen minutes or so left a complete glass out in its wake... By this time we had caught back up to Foxy Lady and passed Boracay unfortunately aground on the sand and we were in line to collect line honours and possibly handicap as well at the shortened course mark, or so we thought. After putting our anchor down a couple of times (the tide had changed) and struggling to get the boat moving with every slight puff, we heard some chatter on the radio before the committee boat raised the abandonment flag and took off back to race hq. We were only 150m from the finish at this time and there was still app. 90min to go till the time limit expired, so to say we were slightly miffed is an understatement. Pity poor Foxy Lady who could have done with the potential second place in their pointscore.

The race committee was trying to be fair to the smaller boats in our division I guess, who would obviously not finish within the time limit, but in doing so they raised the ire of the bigger boats! The best thing they can do if they want to run the race again next year is provide gates at all corners so if the breeze does drop out they can take times or shorten the race. Also the race should start earlier, say 8am for everyone. Anyway let's hope there's breeze next year so we can try it again....

Friday night was a big night for the Hi Fi crew, we were lucky enough to dine at the Cliff restaurant to celebrate our winning of the Lipton Cup (raja muda, king's cup and singapore straits) this year, amongst other trophies!

Saturday and the last day was a bit of an anti-climax for the Hi Fi, we really only had to start one race to win the regatta and the breeze was pretty light. We were on song when the start signal came along though and after another great start and some tricky shifty sailing under the big hills we came away with a second only six seconds behind the persistent Mandrake.That was the regatta for us!

After waiting around for an hour or so and a false start we decided to pack it up and head back to the bar for a well-earned singha (or ten!) and chat about how we would improve the boat for next years Asian Yachting Championships.....

A spectacular party under the stars at the Centara resort wrapped up the event.
Next event for the Hi Fi team is the Raja Muda in Malaysia in November, although there are rumours of the team getting together at other events in the meantime...

New Boat - "Beau Geste" Cookson 80

I've spent the last couple of months working on the new Beau Geste. She's just been launched in Auckland and we did a couple of weeks sea trials and sail testing. Currently the boat is on a ship to the UK to compete in the European season. Her first event will be the Fastnet race in August.

She's definitely a cruiser/racer and has a great interior fitout as you can see by the following photos:

Featuring a shower, watermaker, microwave and 240v power Beau Geste should have a life outside racing and indeed the owner intends to do some cruising in the Med this year.

On deck however she's a full-on racer. With a sailplan inspired by the latest Volvo 70 thinking, the latest Harken hydraulic winches and a simple adaptable deck layout, the expectation is Beau Geste will be nipping at the heels of the 100 footers....

The photo above shows the boat being loaded onto the ship in Tauranga. With her powerful stern sections and efficient twin rudders the boat should be a weapon reaching in ocean races. The boat also features a lifting keel which has a draft of close to 6m when down, providing huge righting moment and allowing big sail area for minimal crew weight.
With her awesome custom paint job (thanks Cooksons), towering deck-stepped mast (Southern Spars) and impressive set of sails (North Sails) the new Beau Geste should make a great impression on this years European racing circuit.

President's Cup Regatta - Boracay

After competing in the Langkawi and Singapore Straits Regattas in January, the Hi Fi team travelled to Boracay in the Philippines to compete in the President's Cup.


Last time we competed in this regatta in 2007 the venue lived up to its reputation as an awesome place to sail and this time was no different. With winds about 12-20kn, flat water, beautiful sunshine and the famous friendly hospitality of the Filipinos competitors couldn't fail to have a good time.


One of the strongest fleets this year in Asia turned out including three tp52s, Jelik, Karakoa, Subic Centennial, Ambush and Full Metal Jacket. The local boats Karakoa and Subic Centennial are always strong competitors here and along with Jelik have won this regatta over the last four years.



Race 1 was a passage race with a long beat and long run followed by a short reach back to the finish line off the idyllic leeward side of Boracay island. Jelik stretched out and we ended up with a second behind Frank Pong's team on handicap.


Day 2 was two windward leewards. Despite having 4 people in our crew sick with a mystery virus and our bowman being in hospital for the day we managed to get around the track ok and we were happy to come away with a close second and a fourth. It was hectic racing with short legs and 3 complete laps putting a premium on clean crew work. We had some great starts and stayed out of trouble away from the chasing tp52s. All in all a great days racing.


Day 3 and another passage race this time a slightly different course with a lot more reaching. We had a difficult start and got involved in a dubious port and starboard incident with Foxy Lady resulting in us having to do a 720. Despite this we still rounded just behind the other tp52s and set about overtaking them along the leeward side of Boracay. We managed to pass everyone except Ffree Fire and went on the wind. With some committed hiking from the team we were soon in our usual spot of second on the water behind Jelik and set up for some reaching, hoisting our genoa staysail.

On the long reach back on the windward side of Boracay we managed to stretch out from the other boats and after a short kite run to the finish it was another win for Hi Fi.

Day 4 dawned extremely wet. The beaches were empty as we headed out to the boat. The race committee sensibly delayed the start and after the rain cleared we had another two great windward leewards in 15-18kn winds. Some of the teams had boathandling issues in the stronger breezes, but Hi Fi managed to come through unscathed and we scored another couple of good results to take out the President's Cup for 2009.

Limit Photos Rolex Sydney Hobart 08

Well a lot has been written about the 2008 Rolex Sydney Hobart. Suffice to say it was a fast race, we finished in just 1 day 23 hours and had a great result on handicap. We were happy to be third round Tasman Island and beat our sistership Loki on time and over the line. Here is a selection of photos from the trip down.

Hi Fi back in action for 2009

Here I am in sunny Langkawi for the Royal Langkawi International Regatta. We arrived on Sunday for the regatta which started Tuesday. So far we've had four races and as usual the points are quite tight. Unfortunately it's a disappointingly small fleet of five boats in the racing class. So far we've had three seconds and a third putting us even on points with Quantum and one point behind Jelik after a drop.
Awesome sailing conditions up here and the heat and sun are a marked difference to where I was last week down in Hobart.
Photos and more reports to come.
Sam