Pete Churchouse on the China Sea Race

Moonblue 2, leaves Victoria Harbour, CSR 2012

Pete Churchouse, owner/skipper of Moonblue 2, one of the boats in our Premier Division writes about the race on our Club's Facebook page, here.  For those of you who don't Like Facebook, here's the text:
Rolex China Sea Race - starts Wednesday 16 April

Owner/Skipper Peter Churchouse has had Moonblue 2, a Custom Warwick 64 ft since new in 2000. His crew of two women and ten men are from New Zealand, Australia, Denmark, the United Kingdom, the Philippines and France. The crew that are flying in for the Race are Doug Flynn (Australia), Brian Wade (New Zealand), David Baker (Australia) and Greg Conley (France). Moonblue 2 has done every Rolex China Sea Race since 2002 (save for 2010 when she was being repainted) and personally, Peter has at least 12 under his belt.

Timing is everything it seems. Pete is hoping to avoid “the bloody awful holes at the mouth of Subic Bay which kill the boats that get there between 1600 and 1700hrs as the inshore wind dies.

Outside boats carry the wind for 30 miles and we all end up at the same place, having been miles ahead. You sit at the mouth of the bay as the sea breeze dies inshore, and the land breeze does not kick in until about 2200hrs - so that’s five to six hours of sitting there going nowhere while the slower boats are still enjoying the breeze up the coast all the way to the mouth of the bay, just in time to pick up the evening land breeze! If you are a super fast racing boat, you get to the mouth of the bay during the day, when there is plenty of wind, but for the ‘faster’ cruising boats like Moonblue 2, we get there just as the wind dies. It’s a fact of life that we have to live with going to that destination.

Pete says that “possibly the best parts of this Race are the evenings after Day 1, when the typical configuration is spinnaker up, modest winds, flattish seas and a beautiful full moon that comes up at about 2100hrs on the port bow, and goes down behind the stern over the course of the night - and huge ‘Pixie’ pies baked beans, pots of coffee and lashings of Branston Pickle and brown sauce. The teapot and sundown is also keenly awaited!”

Apart from looking forward to some great fishing, Pete is planning on doing well in the Race and enjoying the tactical challenges that come with it. “With all the ‘racing’ boats masquerading as ‘cruising’ boats, it is difficult for genuine ‘furniture’ boats to do well under IRC. In fact it is almost a waste of time thinking that you can do well in Premier Cruising Division in such genuine cruising boats given the increasingly racing configuration of some of the boats that slip into this division these days - or older racing boats that decide they are now cruising boats.” says Peter, adding that “everyone that is a racing boat in sheep’s clothing is Moonblue 2’s greatest competition, I like to race against genuine similar ‘furniture’ boats - unfortunately that is increasingly not the case”.

Pete continues to join offshore races despite what he describes as a “yachting bureaucracy making these events more difficult to do” by “adding increasing levels of regulatory and administrative encumbrances to the sport.” He’s dreading the the possibility of “a new raft of rules that need to be complied with next time, adding further additional layers of reasons not to participate.” Let’s hope so too Pete, we would love to see you on the start line every time!

Back to the Race that Pete is taking part in - Pete says “there are all these folks that think the Hobart Race is the ‘biggie’ for sailors and yes it is a classic hard race for sure. But this Rolex China Sea Race takes sailors much further offshore and well out of range of airborne help in the event of a disaster. Hence a need to be well-prepared. I have had guys on board who have done literally double-digit Hobart races and get as sick as a dog on this Race given a very uncomfortable quartering sea on the first day out typically. It is not quite the benign tropical paradise that some people might imagine.”