In an effort to introduce fresh destinations and routes into their cruising/racing calendar, the DBYC raced from the Discovery Bay Marina to the Gold Coast Marina on Saturday, 18 March.
In an effort to introduce fresh destinations and routes into their cruising/racing calendar, the DBYC raced from the Discovery Bay Marina to the Gold Coast Marina on Saturday, 18 March.
The race began off Discovery Bay Marina in a fresh Easterly, which quickly stretched the fleet on a lively beat to Kau Yi Chau. The boats then turned north towards the Tsing Ma Bridge at Kap Shui Mun, but - as is usual on a Saturday afternoon in Hong Kong - the monsoon that had been blowing briskly all week then slowly died. Arriving under the bridge, the fleet then met the expected 1kt counter-current on a 3 kt broad reach and effectively settled into their finishing order.
Nevertheless, the boats cleared the bridge without incident and began the spinnaker chase down to The Brothers, just east of Check Lap Kok, where they jibed north for the finish off the Gold Coast Marina. It was at this late stage that Soko’s crew lost their concentration and the lead to Konza as they rounded Reef Island. Fortunately, Soko was able to hold its cruising chute longer and was then able to regain the lead on a light airs fine reach to the finish with a bare 30 seconds between the two boats at the line.
Line Honours thus went to Richard and Isabel Winter’s Soko, their new Moody 46, by the skin of their teeth. A well deserved victory on HKPN, though, for Mark Bottrell and Andy Brown on Konza, a Yamaha 33. In second place was Soko, with the Carlisle family’s Shockwave, a Hunter 22, third.
The Gold Coast Yacht and Country Club, hosts for the prize giving dinner held that evening, kindly furnished a selection of prizes for the day’s race. Other prizes were contributed by Cerveza Sol International, including that for ‘Most Promising Junior Sailor’ to 12-year-old Michael Carlisle of Shockwave. The ‘Rear End Trophy’ went to Yellow Bolero on this occasion, for steadfastly refusing to employ their spinnaker, thus missing both the tide and the dockside Cerveza Sol beer-call.
Sadly, the next day’s return race through the Ma Wan Channel to Discovery Bay had to be cancelled due to fog, as was Sunday’s prize giving party arranged by the Discovery Bay Marina Club. However, the course has now been proven and the organisers hope to arrange a repeat event for later in the year.
Anyone interested in the new Discovery Bay yacht club or future cruising/racing events to be staged from Discovery Bay should contact us at info@dbyc.net.
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