Koh Samui, Day One

Photo of our crew, cast of thousands, on Xena before going out to the racecourse today, just off Chaweng Beach, Koh Samui.

I’ll post a bit more a few more photos the below, remaining broadband time allowing.   Mostly people piccies.

Front Row, L to R: Richard, TC, Cess, Iris, Digger.
Back Row: Tony, Judy, Cameron, Jing, Grant, Peter, Simon, Michael, Noel, Stevo.

Cess: for whom also thanks for the photo-taking.

More photos below the fold.

Richard (aka "biggus dikkus"...)

Ben (aka "TC") and Simon (aka "Cookie"), check out those wretched handicaps!

Helmut (aka "Digger"), in charge...

Jing at work in the Pit

Stevo, and the boats where we like to see them... au derriere

Cameron, Bowman, came to Samui from New Zealand

Sitting to leeward -- Stevo, Iris, Judy

Grant and Iris

Judy (aka "Bucket": it's a spinnaker-packing thing....)

First day of racing and the proverbial curate’s egg.  Two races were held, both “windward-leeward”[*], not my favourite form of racing, and the X-55 is not really designed for it. First race was in 10-14 knots of wind, shifty but not too bad, for the most part.  We led the fleet for the first three marks, and only got caught by the GP42 in the last run home in a dying breeze.  Race 2 was delayed waiting for wind, but finally got off just before 2 in light breezes, about 6 knots, which then faded to 4-5-ish, shifty as all get out, and for sure not our breezes.  

In the end, we were mid-field in both races, 7^th and 9^th, which, all things considered we are reasonably happy with. In the first race we led at all the marks, but were just beaten over the line at the end by the top handicapper boat Won Ma Rang, a racy GP42.

And we beat Baby Tonga in both races: they were our arch-rivals in the King’s Cup, and the only other Premier IRC class boat in IRC 1.

Current leaderboard leaders are Mandrake, with a first and third for four points, another Hong Kong boat that made the long trip down, so they’ll be happy with that good start.

Results here.


[*] For my Non-Sailing Readers (NSR): "Windard-Leeward" Races are those where you race up into the wind (to “windward”) to a mark, turn around it and tand coming back downwind (to “leeward”).  Hence, they are sometimes called “sausages”.  These types of races are most often used for racing divisions whereas the Division we were supposed to be in was “Premier IRC”, would most often do “passage” races, round islands, which is not only for us more fun, but also more suited to the class of boat we are.  However, Premier division was cancelled as several boats that were to take part didn’t end up making it to the start line.  So they had to put is in a more racing Division, IRC 1, hence the windward-leewards.  And don’t get me started on our handicap, which was increased – more lead in the saddles – just before we arrived…..