Tonga out?

hmmmm...
Just checked the entries in our Division and Baby Tonga's not there.  She was yesterday...
So far only five in our Div.  Last year 16 entries. Perhaps there'll be some more before we line up...

Update: she's moved into IRC, out of Premier.  Interesting.
Also: so far there's 48 entries total.  Last year there were about 115, so they must be hoping for lots of late entries, for this, its 25th Anniversary

Gold Coast Australia finished

Screen grab, 09:30 HKT, 30 Oct.  Real-time race viewer here

They finished at 07:04 this morning, HKT. Congratulations to skipper Richard Hewson and the crew, which includes "our Babs", from last year's King's Cup on Xena.
Report here.

"Gold Coast Australia extends lead..."

You can virtually "see" the high pressure system in this screen grab of the Race viewer! (HKT: 15:30, 29/10)

Check out the milling boats on the left! Gold Coast Oz went down and right
and picked up the breezes filling in from the East

From the Clipper site, Race News:

Gold Coast Australia’s bold move to sail much further than the other teams in order to run around the high pressure system that has dominated proceedings for much of the last week seems to have paid off.

“We have successfully escaped the grasps of the massive high pressure system that is currently playing havoc with the rest of the fleet,” reports skipper, Richard Hewson. “Yesterday we set ourselves a goal to try to be in a certain position away from the light winds of the high, and we managed to reach it before the high pressure system caught up with us.  This is a massive relief as now it looks like we will have good winds all the way to Geraldton.....[read more]

Swan 82 for King's Cup Premier Div

Uh oh. (hat tip: TC).  

She's called Chao Ren Plus One. Without the Chinese characters, I'm only guessing at the meaning, but "chao ren" is likely to be 超人, which is "Superman".
Update: it is indeed 超人, as in Superman.  Anyone got any kryptonite?  And who's the "plus one"?

"Gold Coast Australia" powering to 4th Bullet! Go Babs!

Gold Coast Australia at far right, on way to Geraldton, 08:00 HKT, 28 October
The above is a screen shot.  See the real time viewer here.

Remember: "our Babs", who crewed with us on Xena at last year's King's Cup, is on Gold Coast Australia in the Clipper Round the World Race.
They won the first three legs and look in good position to win the fourth, to Geraldton, Western Australia. That's them way out in front in the screen shot above, with about 450NM to go.  Plug the wind in, on the real time viewer, and they look in good position to get the strengthening breeze first.

See the crew profiles here.

Related: Volvo Ocean Race.  In-Port race in Sanya, Hainan Island, 18th Feb '12.  Chinese entry, Team Sanya, with Mike Sanderson at the helm, here.

Babs at last year's KC.
Iris, Stevo, Digger.

Update: found Babs' diary entry on the race site, latest, Day 10 of Leg 4, 18th October.  Dramatic stuff!

I have come a long way, from the person who till a year or so ago was pretty scared of water, to one who is now sailing through storms in the most feared ocean on earth, the Southern Ocean.

18/10/11 RACE 4 - DAY 10 - by Babs Yendell (Gold Coast Australia)
As you probably know if you've been following the latest Gold Coast Australia updates, we are down in the Southern Ocean, at the bottom of the world, in one of the most remote and extreme environments on earth. We are such an insignificant little blip on the huge expanse of ocean we are crossing.

Everything associated with this ocean here is bigger and wilder than any other. Birds, waves and wind are all of enormous proportions. We've experienced some rather extreme conditions down here in the southern ocean these past few days. 

Off to Cape Town tomorrow....

Gordon and I like sailing as well as old cars.
Clearly one can mix the two on this rally: David Hall last year.

I'm heading off tomorrow evening to take part in the Cape Town to Cairo Classic Car Rally.  Car owner/driver is Gordon Ketelby, who crewed with us in this year's San Fernando Race and who we first met when he crewed on Peter Sorenson's Baby Tonga in last year's King's Cup.

So, follow us on the blog here.

The Race organiser, Roger Pearce, has a tracker in his MG, which is where we'll be in our 1968 Mustang, there or thereabouts. Tracker username and login on the blog site.

I'm taking my iPad and iBook, so should be able to blog along the way, photos mainly, I plan.

Please do make comments on the blog.  You can do so with a Google or other account; or as "anonymous" in which case sign your name at the end of the comment (unless you really do want to be "anonymous").

Cheers and see you on this blog on return at the end of October.

"Gold Coast Australia" gets second bullet of two races! Go Babs!

Follow "Gold Coast Australia", one of two Aussie boats in the Clipper round the world race. They just picked up their second win from two races so far and are now in Rio.
Babs, from our crew last King's Cup, is on board.
See the Race Viewer here.

DBYC Pursuit Race: DB to Cheung Chau

View East from Cheung Chau Life Saving Club.  Yachts and helipad

Off to the measurers....

Last Tuesday 16th August we took Xena to Sai Kung, to be emptied of all gear on board - right down to cutlery and crockery, anchors, water, the lot -- and then have the Overhangs measured.  This in aid of seeing if our handicap -- which went up 13 pips last time -- can be brought back down to a more reasonable level.  The measurements do seem better, and we await results from RORC.
Worth noting -- with due chagrin -- that the last measurements with used figures put into our Cert by RORC had a typo!  (not ours, theirs: and only coming to light after these official measurements).
Anyway, we cross fingers and wait.

Noel, Jo-jo and guests Bert and Jan

A crystal clear day in Hong Kong

Gideon gets down to the job

Sai Kung weather and sea state cooperated well, for good measurements

Hong Kong Island, E. Peninsula-ish, on way back; lovely day

Babs crewed with us in last year's King's Cup and is now in the round-the-world Clipper Race on "Gold Coast Australia", which won Race One and is leading race two.
Check them out here. "Gold Coast" is the green boat with yellow stars.  Click on it for info.
Report on Race Two, to date, by crew member, Army Officer Wayne Reed, here.
They'll be back in this part of the world around May/June next year.
A couple of photos with Babs:

Babs and PF getting off the Longtail boat, Kata Beach, Phuket, Dec 2010

Babs in the middle, Klaus and TC on either side, crew party, King's Cup 2010

New North Sail "Loft"...

Good to hear that business is so good at the newly moved-in North Loft in Sai Kung, that we've had to move Xena's racing sails out -- to the North sub-loft, aka our basement in DB....
Below, Noel and Arlene, laying them out tenderly....
Reminder: check out the Clipper Gold Coast Australia, with our Babs on board, doing the whole round the world.  Babs' email here.

Noel and Arlene: all the North racing sail here, including four kites.

Babs heads off round the world!

Babs on Gold Coast Australia

Xena crew, family and friends, will know the lovely Babs Yendell: she crewed with us on last year's King's Cup, and now she's heading off in the Clipper Round the World Clipper race starting in Southampton UK this coming Saturday.

Check out her blog and cheer on Gold Coast Australia!

Email from Babs:

Hi there,

Firstly my apologies for this mass email, but  I wanted to let as many of you know about the amazing adventure I’m soon to undertake.

On the 12th February 2010 I signed up to take part in the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, an 8 leg  40,000 mile yacht race. I’d originally planned to sign up for just the one of the legs, but to those of you who know me well I can be rather indecisive and as I couldn’t decide which of the 8 legs to do, the simplest option was to do the whole 40,000 mile circumnavigation !

So on July 31st I shall set off from Southampton in the UK on a circumnavigation of the globe. It will take 11 months to complete and during this we’ll cross the Atlantic Ocean, the South Atlantic, the Southern Ocean, the Java and South China Seas plus the mighty Pacific. We’ll go around two of the three great capes – Cape of Good Hope and Cape Leeuwin and we’ll dip down into the roaring 40’s on our way to New Zealand.
In the race there are going to be 10 identical 68 foot stripped down racing yachts with 18 crew on board, each boat will be representing a country or a region of a country.

I’ve set up a website here and I’ll be trying to post updates from the various ports, the posts with photos and video will document my journey from a novice sailor to a seasoned circumnavigator on board the yacht Gold Coast Australia. I hope that you will come with me on this incredible journey around the world. 

You can also view the race on the official website here. it has a link to the race viewer which is updated every 3 hours and gives near real-time positions of the boats as they race around the globe.   

Seems a funny thing to say but have a good year and I’ll see you when I get back, 22nd July 2012 Ocean Village Southampton 40 000 miles later !

Bye for now
Babs

Fun Foto of the day....

What, you call that fully loaded??  There's at least an inch of freeboard!....

And this is the boyz and girrls boarding....

Richard, TC, Cess, Iris, Grant, Cam, Cookie, Digger, Mike, Stevo

PS: Catherine has sent out link to all crew with her Picasa album. For the record, it's here.

Mirs Bay race and return race

Dapeng Fortress in Dapeng town, Shenzhen district. More info here.

These two races are part of Hebe Haven's typhoon series.  They're on August 6th (up) and 7th (back).  Interested please mail me peter@forsythe.hk

For update on racing sked see Xena site.  Note that we are not doing the China Coast or Vietnam, though we're still committed to doing King's Cup and also the Boracay in February.

Some random notes of interest for Mirs Bay:

In Chinese it's Da Peng Wan (大鵬灣), which literally means "big beautiful bird bay" (but it's not a "plover" as in the Cove, nor a "starling" as in the Inlet).  Whereas Mirs appears to mean nothing: though I believe it relates to a colonial by the name of Mir, and was early on apostrophe'd as in "Mir's" bay.  Look up Mirs now and you get Michigan Information & Research Service, Manx Industrial Relations Service, Melbourne International Research Scholarship and -- my favourite -- the Metrology Institute of the Republic of Slovenia.


Mirs Bay's Dapeng peninsula is home to Dapeng village and the Dapeng fort, piccie above.  It was a fortress used against pirates during the Ming dynasty.


Update, 17 July: Rick's away o/s and others tied up in boats doing the whole Typhoon series, so we'll skip this as race, though we may still cruise up.  Stay in touch, if interested.  P.

Photo selection: Samui '11

Digger's shoes match the spinnaker clew and the other spinnaker...

I see that Cess is sending out CD to all crew and thanks for that, Cess!
Meantime, I've made a bit of selection, 10 or 20 in each of two sections...

People selection

Boat selection

Xena back on her moorings

Xena back at Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, at pontoon,  21:45 on 19th June.
I went to see her Monday 20th and she's in great shape!  (apart from the genset of course...)
The big ugly brown thing is an air vent for the MTR subway

Xena back on her moorings just before 10:00 pm last night, so just under 8.5 days return from Koh Samui.
Congrats to Grant and the boyz for another successful delivery!
I'm off now to see about the "to do" list....

From Grant, last nite:

Dear Peter and Jing,

Happy to report your lovely "Xena" is tied up to the RHKYC jetty safe and sound.

Easy for the boyz to off load and hose down here.

Also fairway not dredged yet so only safe to go to mooring when tide high.

Have spoken to Simon and he and Benny from "Moon Blue 2" will give the boyz a hand put "Xena" on mooring when they are ready tomorrow.

Now a bit of a clean up, then some sleep and off to immigration and port authorities first thing.

Followed by amendment of flight home to tomorrow arvo hopefully.

Thanks again for everything, enjoyed our time togeather.

Talk again soon when I am home.

All the best, Grant.

From Iris, this morning:

Good Morning Peter and Jing

"Xena" safely Home.

Grant will miss the Boyz and they likewise .. another delivery well done.

I forwarded a copy of U.K. Halsey Newsletter to forsythe1@netvigator.com

interesting reading about Lightning .. Fuel Filters .. Clogged Air filters and Injectors.

Thank you Both kindly making Samui Regatta possible for us all .. pleasure to be with you.

Must say how impressive "Xena" looked .. all decked out for Cruising .. Thanx to the Boyz .. they're Great!

...
Lotsa Love

S P L A S H !!!!!!

Xena approaches Hong Kong

As of 08:00 HKT, Xena was at 20.50n 113.35e, about 100 nM from Hong Kong, scooting along at 8 SOG, on broad reach, SSE breezes around 15 knots.
Same breezes as we had yesterday in the DB Regatta, where I went on Tom W's Vega, and we came second in Div A, to Boadicea.  Lovely day, clear skies, steady breezes.
I'm estimating Xena's arrival Hong Kong around midnight tonight.
Samui piccies just for fun...(as always, click to enlarge)

"China hires Volvo Ocean winner to skipper entry"

I thought I'd follow China's entry in the America's Cup World Series, for a while anyway.
Article in today's South China Morning Post below the fold.

"China joins America's Cup Series"

From today's South China Morning Post, news that China will be in Portugal in August for the opening race in the America's Cup World Series.
This is good for sailing in Hong Kong and Asia.  And ties in with what we're trying to do, to bring more youth sail training in Hong Kong (w.i.p.) and co-organise more events with China.
Article copied below the fold:

Grant and the Boyz get great view of last night's eclipse

Longest this decade, turned blood red by volcano

From Grant, this morning, by onboard email:

Did you see the full moon last night ? 

We were just off Nha Trang, clear sky.........like daylight.  Then about 2 am it slowly got darker and darker until moon eclipsed.  Full moon back around 4.30am. awesome !!

BTW: they've been hiking along at 8-8.5 SOG, with 20 knots on the beam

Oh what a glorious day

Xena in centre, Race 6, S. Islands course, leading the fleet.  Click to enlarge.
Photo: Anne-Sophie, Samuipics.com

This is a stunning photo.  Clear day, lovely breezes 15-18 knots.  Koh Samui so clear in the background under perfect tropical clouds.
The Island course took us south past the reef and bottom mark, back through a gate to the finish.  We led start to finish on the water and took a 5th on corrected time, when the storm -- about 20 minutes after this photo -- overtook the backmarkers and brought them to finish with 35+ knots of breeze.
Click once to enlarge and click again to enlarge even further.  Thanks to Anne-Sophie for this lovely photo!

Another nice one, the A2 in full flight, finishing the W/L course, Race Five.
Baby Tonga is the kite with big circle on it.  Bit too close....

Russell Coutts pitchpoles in 22 knots yesterday

We didn't see this from the Multihulls at Samui! [hat-tip to Joachim]

Xena leaves Samui, on her way home

Desperate to improve our IRC handicap, we made a few modifications to

Xena before departure..... (re the handicap, don't get me started)

Xena left Samui yesterday after lunch yesterday with Grant, Noel and Mike aboard.

Grant says:
Final checks completed, dinghy and motor stowed.  Rest of the boat stowed for offshore. Departed Samui after lunch today [11 June].  Big rain storm at present, expect will only last about 1 hour. Wind from behind. All rest OK.
God willing see you in about 9 days.

Cheers, Grant

Some photos from Cess. "TongZena Cup"

Twice Aussie IRC Champion, Peter Sorenson ("Soro") of Baby Tonga presents inaugural

"TongZena Cup" to Peter of Xena.  The Cup will be fought for again at King's Cup, in December.
(it was a dark and stormy night. Oh... and wet and humid..)

From Cess:

Hope you both had a great time cruising & exploring.  We, too stayed on for another 3 days at another resort in Lamai (infact close to our upwind mark when doing south course) to rest and relax.  The week's racing must have caught up.......we were in bed at 7pm on Sun! Attached a stunning photo of you both  & 2 others from SamuiPics.....

Peter and Jing at Skippers' VIP reception, 31 May

The crew in "dress shirts", Farewell Party, 4th June

Richard (kneeling), Michael, Cess, Judy, Iris,

Tony, Jing, Peter, Digger, Grant,

Stevo, Catherine, TC (Ben), Cam

....

Joyce, who was on the press boat &  also on Ffreefire, has more Xena photos which she will pass on to me today. Will put them all together onto DVD and hopefully  post them to you before I fly out this weekend. [PF: so... come back again.  I'll post them when received]

Keep well in the meantime.

Cheerio,

Cess

Koh Samui Day Five. Party and "TongZena" Cup

View to Chaweng Cove, from Centara, early morning, 4th June

Noel, MC, Iris, Jing, Digger, TC, Stevo, Peter, Cess, Richard, Tony
Grant, Judy, Cam, Cookie

Just a quick note from my iPad, as the hotel wifi is not working and I can't post photos, to say:

A. Some more photos -- I'll post when I get Internet access, which won't be till Thursday, so come back then to check them out.

B. Pete Sorenson, skipper of "Baby Tonga", instigated the "TongZena Cup" (mis-spelling of both names one of those local Thai "lost in translation" moments), which he presented to us on stage at the Prize giving last night. A gracious and thoughtful gesture. He told us "don't hang on to it too tight, we're coming to take it back at King's Cup!".
Photos of the Cup and party on Thursday, if not before.
Cheers to all crew and safe journeys home!
Update, 9 May, the "TongZena Cup"

Presented to Xena by Peter Sorenson, on 5th June at Samui.
Winner 2010: Baby Tonga. Winner 2011: Xena
To be fought for again at King's Cup 2011

Update, 8 May, some photos:

Xena upwind Race 9