Sailors Regatta sees 21boatsand 104 sailors take to the water
Photography by Scott Murray
The third annual Sailor’s Regatta organized by the Phuket Yacht Club took sail on Friday March 12th with competitors coming from around the region to race in four different classes (Racing Monos & Multis, Fireflies, & Platus) in the three-day event.
This was the third Sailor’s Regatta to be held and while many other regional regatta have seen their numbers dwindle this “no frills” regatta has seen its numbers grow from five to nine to twenty-one boats this year.
The regatta numbers were a bit of good news for a Club that has had its share of sadness lately. Phuket sailing legend Henry Kaye had just passed away.The Club also lost Tomas Andersson, known as “Swedish Tom” recently, and PYC stalwart Mark Horwood was in ICU at Phuket’s Vachira Hospital, convalescing from cancer surgery. Top all this off with the fear and paranoia caused by the corona virus and the Sailor’s Regatta with a few days of fun on the water was a much-needed respite and boost of confidence for club members.
On the first day, PRO Matt McGrath sailed two windward-leewards and could have gotten in a third race but many of the sailors wanted to pay their respects to Heny Kaye and needed to make their way to the top of the island to attend a service for Henryin order to do so. On the second day, McGrath had the Monohulls (IRC) & OMR Multis do one race —a round-the-island course —while he set three races each for the Fireflies & Platus in Ao Chalong Bay. And on the final day, Matt ran two races for each class in Ao Chalong using the same sequence he had all regatta: monohulls (IRC) followed by OMR Multis then the Fireflies & Platus.
Niels Degenkolw’s Phoenix won top honors in the Monohulls-IRC class followed by Andrew McDermott Jessandra who edged Vitaly Plaksin’s Uminoko by one point for second stop in the final standings. Paul Baker’s Farrgo Express was fourth with Gary Smith’s Endeavour of Whitby fifth and Martyn Henman Second Nature, who sailed up from Langkawi for the event, finished out the class.
Dan Fidock’s Fugazi team had a great regatta and won the OMR Multihull division edging out Dirk Weiblen’s No Fear for top spot by two points. Dirk was sailing with the Jakobsens, down from Pattaya for the event, and must now try and get home to Shanghai. Marc Chapus’ Moto Inzi (unable to sail with the Fireflies because the boat had been modified) was third in the class, which was rounded out by Bill Kane’s The Sting.
The surprise of the Firefly class was Peter Taylor’s Ballerina who ended up finishing second overall with a six-man crew. Usually this class is a two-horse battle between John Newnham’s Twin Sharks and Hans Rahmann’s Voodoo with Twin Sharks usually prevailing. But Taylor made a number of shrewd tactical moves throughout the regatta to finish six points behind Twin Sharks’ all-star crew. Ray Waldron’s Surf Patrol followed in third with Voodoo, less Hans Rahmann, in fourth and Mick Coleman’s Mamba in last spot.
And it was great to see cooperation from Mike Downard’s Sail in Asia as six of his Platus made their way over from Ao Yon to sail in their own One Design class. Nathan Masopust and his crew on Dragon won this class after recently winning the Transworlds in Pattaya followed by Beaver, Tiger, The Fox, Wolf and Cheetah in that order as very little separated the boats in this class all regatta.
Following the lead of Mick Coleman the PYC sold raffle tickets and raised Bt100,000 to help alleviate ex-Commodore Mark Horwood’s hospital bills.
Brent McInnes of the Phuket Cruising Yacht Club provided the photography boat for the regatta and Brendan Kealy kindly supported the start boat with Kathy De Cruz handling the start flags.
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