Blue skies & good gusts hold for day four of Yacht Sales Co Regatta
Story & Photos by Scott Murray
The 2025 Yacht Sales Co Regatta certainly hasn’t been boring. Great wind has allowed Race Officer Simon James to get in a superb variety of courses in and around Ao Chalong.
Dan Fidock’s Extreme 40 Parabellum swooshed and swooshed, using the good wind to its full advantage winning both races today in the racing multihull class, and taking line honours in both as well. This class definitely has an air of continuity to it as Twin Sharks finished second in both races (but was only 48 seconds behind Parabellum on corrected time in race one); Blue Nose finished third in both; and Twister 2 took fourth in both. Ballerina finished fifth in the first race and decided to not sail in the second race of the day.
Monohull Racing saw Craig Nicholls & James Bury’s team on Alright continue to edge out Nils Degenkolw’s Phoenix winning both races today, making it eight in a row since the regatta started. But the margins were so close with Alright winning the first race of the day (seventh in the series) by 23 seconds on corrected time and capturing the second race (eighth in the series) by 1:39 on corrected time.
James Baxter’s Zephyrus did upset Andy McDermott’s Corsair Trident in race five of the Multihull Cruising class series today but as Trident has won all four other races in this class it will win the division with David MacInnis’ Vancouver coming in third, though the Lagoon 450F did grab a second-place finish in the first race of the day (race four in the series).
After the racing was done, competitors gathered at the Phuket Yacht Club for a Spit Roast Pig courtesy of Mick Kealy and Octopus Electrical.
Since its inception, this regatta has been renowned for having family members compete together and this year is no different. There’s all the Rowlands on the Stealth Catamaran, Twister 2. Then Neil Ayre is sailing with son George on Ballerina, while Ket Manglaseranee and his daughter Kwang are sailing on Trident. Kwang, by the way, is an accomplished Muay Thai fighter, winning a series of fights recently at Bangla Stadium.
The final day of the regatta sails tomorrow, and by dropping their worst scores, Parabellum, Alright and Trident have locked up their respective classes. But there is still a chance for other yachts to improve their positions and with the sunny skies and good breeze they won’t want to miss out.
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