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...