Day Three: regatta win, and home East around.... Suppin' the Cup

Middle Island Prize giving, Day Two (Saturday):
Biggus, Cess, Alfie, Liz, Iris, Grant, TC, Jono

Race Three, windward/leeward: Forse and Jono. This one was
close: we won by only 1 minute....

Heading back to Middle Island after Race Four, Sunday: Iris, Alfie,
Grant, Strompfie, TC, Matt, Jono, Biggus

Cruising Mode: on way back to Kellett Island: Matt, Jono,
Forse, Liz, Alfie

Biggus, Grunter, Strompfie, Cess, Matt, Iris

Jono, Liz, Alfie, a-winin' 'n cheesin'.  Note Jono's "8-pack"...

Cess, Matt, Iris, Biggus, Liz, Alfie

Poolside, Royal HK YC... evening 14th October.

China Coast Regatta, Premier Division Cup

Getting down and dirty.... sipping Rum and Ginger from the Premier
Division China Coast Race Cup

Jono.  Mr Cool

Oscar takes a toke...

Cess

Our two house guests: Gioia and Annie Reid get into the act

Annie and Gioia show off the Cup to be engraved with "XENA, 2012"

Race note: Race three a W/L twice round, we won by only one minute, in fresh-ish breeze of up to 10 knots, E at 080-100.  Race four, a geometric, triangle followed by sausage, in dying breezes, we won by 10.5 minutes.  A1 and J1 sails.  Great crew-work: fast and smooth gybes, good working upwind.
Results.

Waiting..... Day Two China Coast Regatta

Boat boom tent up at Middle Island, waiting for AP to go down.... Day Two
(Thanks to Cess for photos)

Waiting for wind on Day two, races started two and a half hours late.  They sent us off finally on a windward-leeward in about barely 5 knots of breeze, very fluky, shifty... fuuuun!  We were first on the water in our class, in one hour fifteen, and ten minutes in front on corrected time.

... waiting... so PF goes over some safety stuff, for
Hainan crew: Hainan race starts 18th Oct...

Result: one short windward/leeward of about one hour fifteen: we won by 15 minutes elapsed, 10.5 corrected. Hardly any wind.... 080-100 degrees.

The nav-lads and technology gaggle...

Biggus, Jono and TC kill some time waiting for race two to start,
fiddling with a gaggle of technology.
Posted from my iPhone

China Coast Regatta, Day 1

Biggus, Grunter, TC, Forse, Jono, Mark, Noel
Cess, Alfie, Liz, Splash.  Photo taken by Oscar in dinghy

I guess piccie says it all.... win by 31 minutes ET, 22 mins CT

Slow race day, winds fluky galore and light, 5-10 knots max... holey like cheese.
We did course 8, a 15.5 miler that gave a choice of N or South of Beaufort on the run home; we chose N, which turned out fine.... One in the bag...
Thanks to Cess and Richard for the photos.
And I guess I should post this, that Cess calls "shortest and tallest"...  Oscar will be with Xena on the delivery to Phuket and back, and racing with us to Hainan in the meantime.  He's a good Bowman.

"Shortest and Tallest". Oscar and Forse

Crew Lists coming together...

... nicely..

China Coast Regatta: 12-14 October

Hainan Race: 18-20 October

King's Cup: 1-8 December

Nothing to do with these races, just a cool photo you get if you Google
"China Coast Regatta" and leads to this cool site

Xena racing update

We won't do the Raja Muda regatta, as it's a big logistic challenge and no guarantee of a Premier Division.
We're still committed to the King's Cup in Phuket, so that's a definite.
We may also do the China Coast Regatta, with the Hong Kong to Hainan Race on 18th October.
That's a Cat 1 race of about 360 miles, an overnighter.  If we do that, then Xena will stay in Hainan for a bit before delivery to Phuket.
The marina at Sanya in Hainan is great.  See piccies here.
A BTW: there's an update on the Tipsy Frenz sinking on the post immediately below.