Xena: the Warrior Princess: Hainan Start: nice photo

RHKYC Hainan Race 2012 - Xena makes the pace up the harbour - Guy Nowell/RHKYC

From Sail World.com. Here. Thanks to TC for the link. Click to enlarge.
LATER (26 Oct): Ray of Raymarine went down yesterday to Sanya and managed to finally fix the instruments (all of which had been off for the whole of the race). Was the DCU (digital control unit).
Race report....
A quick trip down to Sanya in Hainan... just not quick enough to catch the racing boats....
Just before start, all the instruments failed... having been "fixed" over previous two days. So we went down with only one small analogue instrument, giving apparent wind direction and speed.
Breezes Easterly-ish, in range 25-30 knots for most of way down.
Coming out the harbour, we picked up EFG Mandrake around about Cape D'Aguilar -- they having just retrieved a man overboard when they put up a touch-too-early spinnaker which pressed them a bit much, then picked up Ambush in the move out to the ocean.
Still in sight of the Lima Islands (China), we snagged a fishing net being Pair Trawled -- a now illegal activity in Hong Kong waters, though not yet enacted. They're supposed to be pulling a small buoy and flag so you can see its distance, which they were not. We went from 11 knots going South, to 2 knots going East, being dragged sideways and rounded up. Luckily as we were dragged sideways -- in both directions, vertically and horizontally -- the line slipped past our "L" keel, caught the rudder momentarily, then flipped off.
That night, strong breeze, seas knocking the bow, no visibility at all -- the tricolour light went out as well, so we had no sight of the windex -- black, no stars, nothing to steer against, only a couple of us (not including me, shamefully...) able to steer with any consitency: mainly Grant, Alfie and Liz, who stood long watches.
We were flying full Main and our sturdy A3 spinnaker. Middle of the night, the strop on the A3 Clew blew out. Retrieval took a while, a wrap round the forestay retrieved, the up with the J2 jib, as the A3 had some repairs of a L-shaped rip near the head repaired. We decided to stay with the J2 for the rest of the night, as we were in kind of "cruising mode": that is, we just had to get to Sanya, to win our Division of the Regatta week. And we wanted to make sure we had no damage as we're continuing on to Thailand, and carrying a lot of stuff for that regatta as well (excuses, excuses....).
Still, first 24 hours, we averaged 10.5 knots. (Line Honours winner, Sam Chan's TP52 Ffreefire, did 15 knots average overall)
Daylight, and back to A3, then A2 in the arvo as winds moderated. That night we had to gybe in to make the peninsula with the finish line: we rather overstood the ideal gybe point -- for which I take responsibility: working off gybe angles on our Polars (based on True wind angles), vs our one instrument with Apparent wind angles; which I didn't really twig to soon enough.... So overstood, that we had to shift to J2 jib!..... So, finish at dawn on the Saturday... Beers all round, and -- parked next to us -- the crew of Ambush cracked out the Kettle of Rum, at 05:00....
Results: Ffreefire Line Honours, new race record and winner overall. Us?.... well, not covered in glory for this leg, but we got there safe and sound....
Now, to try to fix the instruments. Ray of Raymarine is heading off this morning (Thursday 25th) to see what he can do. So far it's baffled many minds, being that most frustrating of things, an intermittent fault.. [See LATER above]

The Serenity Marina at Sanya. View from my room. Our race boats
in the fist row. There are hundreds of berths, we'd love to have in
Hong Kong, but only a handful of boats berthed here...