Parabellum continues to excel
Story & Photos by Scott Murray
The second day of the 2025 Yacht Sales Co Regatta went off without a hitch and Dan Fidock’s Extreme 40 Parabellum did what it does best, whiz throughout the course taking line honours and winning the only race staged today.
The race that PRO Simon James staged today was a good one, a round-the-islands course off of Ao Chalong that gave all the yachts a chance to strut their stuff on a coastal race with good breeze and a nice scenic backdrop.
Wind can be intermittent at this time of year in this part of the world, forcing many regattas in this neck of the woods to stage a series of windward-leeward races, but the wind has held true the first couple of days allowing for some great coastal racing.
John Newnham’s crew on Twin Sharks took second spot in Multihull Racing today followed by George Eddings’ Blue Nose, another Firefly, and Glywn Rowland’s Twister 2 (an Asia Catamarans Stealth) was next in fourth spot.
After sitting out yesterday, Neil Ayers and his young crew on Ballerina joined the five-boat Multihull Racing class today and finished last on corrected time (fourth on elapsed time), but they did get a good feel for the Firefly and are bound to improve as the regatta goes on. Ayers, if you’ll recall, has lots of experience with Fireflys as he used to own and race Mamba.
Monohull Racing saw a similar order of finish as yesterday as Craig Nicholls & James Bury’s team on Alright edged out Neil’s Degenkolw’s Phoenix by nine minutes on corrected time and have won all three races in this class so far.
And another similar result was seen in the Multihull Cruising class as Andy McDermott’s Corsair Trident won again, also by nine minutes on corrected time, followed by James Baxter’s Zephyrus and David MacInnis’ Vancouver, though Vancouver did finish the race today.
Glywn and Karen Rowlands had their daughter Sian are sailing on Twister 2 with Mark Britton (the boyfriend of one of their other daughters), plus the Yacht Sales Co’s Charlie Robinson, John Hearne and Saichan “Oy” Tom. The Rowlands were on John Hearne’s new Stealth Boreas when it flipped at the Roya Langkawi International Regatta earlier this year, injuring Hearne’s wife and causing Karen to separate her shoulder. In great pain, she helped sail Twister 2 back to Phuket as they had chartered her out for that regatta and she has been soldiering on ever since.
After the racing was completed, the sailors retreated to the Phuket Yacht Club for a buffet dinner graciously supplied by Dan & Dow Fidock and the Really Good Deli.
A big thank you must go out to Konstantin Noran and Dragon Marine who have supplied the start boat for Simon James and the race committee.
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