Sunday’s Race 2 – The Return to Discovery Bay

Bullets that had rocked the boats much of the night had eased by the 0930 skippers briefing, as had the forecast – down from F6-7 to a warm and fuzzy ENE F4-5. Actual winds at Waglan Island were only 10-15 kts.

This fun event was also coined the “Impromptu Pursuit Race”, since it was thrown together at the last minute by Nik von der Lühe, ably supported by Nigel Easterbrook. Great to see keen volunteers stepping forward to join the Race Committee...

After only 3 days in the planning, Sunday 17 September’s impromptu pursuit race to Stanley turned out to be a great day. We ended up with 15 boats (10 racing) and 50+ for lunch at Wildfire in Stanley, followed by a visit to the HK Maritime Museum (recommended) and the usual Stanley market shopping.

This new event, sponsored by and routing around Hong Kong Disneyland, went off without a hitch - right up to the Black Rain Storm warning, and the black rain storm that immediately preceded it!

What a great weekend. Successful too, given the two main aims:

1. Have a fun race down there to overnight in the Soko’s, and
2. Draw attention to possible ruin of these beautiful islands. 

The DBYC held its Christmas Party at The Cavern in Lan Kwai Fong this year - again, something a little different. Given the Pop Legends nature of the show, quite a few got into the swing of it, dressing from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s…

What a great weekend. We were promised a strong monsoon and that’s what we got - well, most of the time. Race Chairman, Jim Fernie asked at the race briefing for assistance composing the race report, requesting "a narrative from the back of the fleet". Well, Fate was obviously listening, and decided to punish such hubris with a hole with Wizard‘s name on it. Thus follows a perspective of TMR9 ‘from the back of the fleet’…

Our thanks, once again to all the Race Committee, including John Karas and crew aboard Committee Boat Trakka, and Bevin Brakespeare and crew aboard Safety Boat Outsider, for all their efforts organising this year’s Tsing Ma Regatta. Our appreciation, also, to our hosts at the DBMC and GCYCC and to our many sponsors, listed below, for their generous support of the event.

Preceded by an evening’s Rules & Tactics refresher, a day of ’drag-racing‘ was arranged along similar lines to the Sail Training Weekend in 2003. Drag-racing is a form of live training, where the boats complete a normal start and beat to finish at a windward mark, then the fleet returns to the start to repeat as desired. It’s a fun, but very effective way of improving your crew’s confidence and ability at the start.

Looks like the pukka Hong Kong sailing season has arrived! Marvelous sailing weather - and we made the most of it on Sunday. Clear air, a great breeze and lovely temps graced the MOB (Man Overboard) Relay Race and subsequent beach BBQ at Sunshine Island.