Sailing in Hong Kong
China Sea Race - Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour has got to be one of the most exciting locations to start a sailing race. This busy harbour is not for the faint of heart, as the boats need to weave through the cruise ships, ferry boats, tugs, barges, not to mention the collection of local boats and sampans which call the narrow channel home.
The weather cooperated today, providing an easterly breeze of 15 -18 knots at the race start. The 24-boat fleet beat fairly quickly out the harbour, in front of the downtown skyscrapers, past the fishing village at Lei Yue Mun and the shoreside shrines, across Junk Bay, and out past the Po Toi islands into the South China Sea.
In the Racing Division, Neil Pryde's newly modified Hi Fi (HKG), with it's distinctive flared deck aft, was early at the pin end of the start line, but gybed around to restart and was quickly back at the head of the fleet with the other 50-footers. In fact, out through Junk Bay, the 2006 race winner Fortis Mandrake (HKG) and the TP52s, Geoff Hill's Strewth (AUS), and Sam Chan's Ffreefire (HKG), were closely grouped together, crossing tacks.
Dockside before the start, Australian skipper Geoff Hill of Strewth said, "Conditions look like it will be slow. These boats go well in 15-20 knots, which I think we'll get the first day. 'Clouds' [Roger Badham], the Australian [weather] forecaster is calling for a transition from the two fronts coming through, so light conditions days three and four could get down to a stop. So we've catered until Sunday lunchtime and then the guys will be eating their toenails. I'd like to think we can get there Saturday afternoon, but that depends on what happens days two and three."
As far as it being the usual scenario for the Rolex China Sea Race, Hill continued, "It's pretty typical conditions except this time the two weather models -- the European model and the US model -- are showing differently. The EU model saying it's going to be really light, and the American model is showing we'll get breeze all the way. If that's the case, then we'll have a fast race."
The Cruising Division (IRC Premier Cruising and HKPN) started at 1220 and enjoyed a similar fast trip up the channel. Both fleets encountered a drop in the breeze through Junk Bay, but outside the last of the islands and heading offshore the wind was still fresh and the boats reveled in the chance to click off some miles.
Gordon Blaauw, crew onboard Mark Thornburrow's Taswell 49 Dream (IRC Premier Cruising) has done 17 China Sea Races. He was looking forward to another one saying, "We did it two years ago (2006) with Mark and basically the same crew. We were second overall, only Mandrake beat us. We're trying to emulate that again."
Describing Dream, Blaauw said "It's a cruising boat: we've got air-conditioning, hot and cold water, desalinization and all the rest of it. So if we beat the racing machines with that, we'll let them know about it!" Outlining their strategy he continued, "We'll probably end up a bit south of the rhumb line most of the way and then harden up as the wind swings north, which is what the expectation is. Our ETA is 90 hours (Monday morning), if we do it in that, we'll have done pretty well.
The updated weather forecast has the easterly breeze force 5-6 (17-27 knots) through tomorrow morning, then dropping to force 4 (11-16 knots) though Friday.
As of 1800 local time, Fortis Mandrake was leading the fleet, sailing at 9.7 knots in 19 knots of wind, with 500 miles to the finish.
-- About Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong --
Victoria Harbour is the harbour between the Kowloon Peninsula and the Hong Kong Island of Hong Kong, China.
The harbour is famous for its spectacular panoramic views, and is a top tourist attraction. It is a natural focal point of the territory, and considered a crucial natural geographical element for city dwellers. This sense of geographical attachment is most notably demonstrated in recent years, when the Hong Kong government's efforts to undertake reclamation projects in the harbor were met with widespread popular protests, despite the fact that such work had taken place in the harbor for the past century and a half.
Photos of Rolex China Sea Race by: Rolex / Carlo Borlenghi
Photos of Rolex China Sea Race by: Rolex / Carlo Borlenghi
Submitted By YachtPals on 20 Mar
Hong Kong, China, China Sea Race, China Sea, Rolex China Sea Race, sailboats, sailboat, sailing, boats, boat, yachts, yacht, yachting
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Rolex China Sea Race
Neil Pryde's Hi Fi takes line honours win in Rolex China Sea Race
An increase in wind strength off the West coast of the Philippines overnight gave the lead boats exactly what they needed to close in on the finish line off Grande Island at the entrance to Subic Bay, Philippines on Easter Sunday. Neil Pryde's Wellbourn 52 Hi Fi crossed the finish line just before noon local time with an elapsed time of 71 hrs 35mins 42 secs.
Dockside at the Subic Bay Yacht Club, skipper Neil Pryde was presented with a Rolex Yacht-Master timepiece by John de Luna from Rolex Philippines for Hi Fi's line honours win.
Hi Fi completed the course with an average speed of 7.6 knots over the 565-nautical mile course from Hong Kong to the Philippines. Not a bad speed considering the boat "parked up" yesterday morning for five hours with no wind at all. A long, hot wait for a boat that could be excused for wondering then if its' game plan had gone wrong.
Pryde said, "We had planned to always go the south side of the rhumb line, we figured we'd get the shift, which we did, but we didn't plan on the big park up yesterday when Mandrake went inshore and gained about ten miles on us. We went from 30 miles ahead to only 13 miles (in one sked). Mandrake had their strategy, and we stuck to our game plan, and in the end that's what yacht racing is all about."
The Rolex China Sea Race line honours win was a first for Pryde, who has previously won the race before on overall corrected time. Hi Fi was launched in January and the crew had only competed in the Royal Langkawi and Singapore Straits regattas. This was the first offshore test, which was an impressive showing. Pryde commented, "We had a lot more time to settle down and get organized. Most of the races we had done were short, round the cans. This time we've been on the boat a long time, we had a chance to really sort things out. We had an excellent crew on the boat, some very good technicians, who were able to put the boat together."
Pryde, an internationally known sail maker whose specialty and success has been as a designer and manufacturer of windsurfers, is a natural tinkerer, known to always be tweaking his boats to make them faster. Hi Fi is a completely new boat, though it was born from the ashes of a previous boat he owned.
Pryde described the process: "We couldn't sell the boat for a realistic price, so I figured out that the residual value in hardware, equipment, electronics, and everything else, was worth more than I could get for it second-hand. We decided to take a chain saw to it, literally cut it up and salvage all the equipment out of it and start all over again."
"We got Hugh Welbourn in the UK to design the hull, fin, keel, rudder. Hugh's a non-conformist designer anyway, he pushes the edges, so when you give him a freehand to come up with a pretty radical boat, he did that. The boat is pretty radical! It's a totally new hull, keel and rudder. The front part of the deck is the old deck, but the aft end is totally new. It's a meter narrower in the middle and a lot, lot wider in the back, so it's like a wedge. So it's a very different boat from a Farr one-design.
Talking about the innovative hull shape, Pryde said, "We've got hard chines which control the water flow over the side of the boat, making it theoretically drier. It's got very big flare in the aft sections of the boat, which means you can get the crew a lot further outboard, so you can get a lot of leverage. It's actually a very efficient setup.it looks a little radical, but it's actually very practical."
China Sea Race - Finish in the Philippines
The land-sea breeze off the Philippine coast made and lost fortunes for the potential handicap winners on the last night of the 565-nautical mile China Sea Race.
At the finish in the Philippines, the local enthusiasm and passion for sailing is evident, so it seemed fitting that the overall handicap winner was the Philippines entry, Subic Centennial, co-skippered by Judes Echauz and Vince Perez and their crew of young Filipino sailors.
Echauz (who is President of the Philippines Sailing Association) and Perez won the China Sea Race in 1998 with the same boat, and ten years later decided it was time to try again.
Rolex China Sea Race chairman Peter Cremers, who raced on board his Warwick 55, Shahtoosh, finishing second in IRC Performance Cruising, was pleased with another successful edition of this biennial race from Hong Kong. Cremers said, “The race gives a bit to everybody, the top racing machines and the cruisers like mine. If they do the race in a proper way, everybody has a chance to do well, that's the purpose. It's not just the top hot boats that find a home in this race, everyone needs to find his niche in the race.”
The official prize giving ceremony will take place on April 16th 2008 at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club.
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