Organising Committee Chairman Jeremy Camps reports
Our Race Officer Simon James from Phuket arrived on Wednesday afternoon ,
he and his assistant Chandran were escorted to Peninsular Sailing Clubs sailing
location the Pulau Indah Marina on Thursday morning to set everything up , in
fact most equipment is untouched since last years championship , from the
time we got to the marine at 1100 till we left at 2,30 it never stopped raining …
we feared this was an omen ! Friday morning did have some rain but it stopped
as did the wind so our Race Officer held the participants back, we race without
our usual outboard engines which each boat has . mainly for estheric reasons ,
with the engines sticking out the back of the boats , but we have 2 engine
sizes yanmar and mariner with different weights , their main use is exiting and
reentering the marina
Under the Race officers guidance the committee boat Vice Commodore Jegas X
34 Leopad Dream was moored in its usual spot on the south shore and visible
from our marina club house, to reach it and the line competitors were faced
with a beat to windward against a strong tide which was challenging but in
the end all 9 entries made it to somewhere near the line for a sausage
windward /leeward course , Commodore Jeremy in his favorite Cabaret 7 x
Quantum from Weymouth with nice crinkley sails and a veteran of countless
starts against the tide at Burnham on Crouch was the only boat on the line but
it still took him 5 tacks to actually cross using a slight puff, narrowly passing
the stem of the committee boat he headed off to the shallower north shore
short tacking up the shore until he could go out with some hope of not being
swept past the leeward mark, the next boat was some 15 minutes behind , as
with most races there was much place changing in tough conditions ,
Cabaret 7 won by a considerable margin followed by Mandarin helmed by
experienced Irish skipper Jason crewed by Jackson, third was Ratatosch aka the
squirrel with a huge eski of booze skippered by Gavin in his Captain Pugwash
hat crewed by PSC Rear Commodore Yasid 4 th was Lady VG skippered by
RSYC Commodore Ramasamy Menon and crewed by wife VG 5 th Peach 2 with
Belgian Diplomat Peter and crewed by Jamaica from the Philippines 6 th
Second wind with Charles and Martin 7 th Emily newly arrived from UK with
skipper Evan and crew Wolfram from Germany 8 th Recaa helmed by daughter
Kesh one of PSC s top dinghy sailors and a surprising 9 th Kittiwich sailed by
Rainer from Germany with crew by Aileen
By the time the second race started the tide had lessened and it was a proper
race Cabaret 7 again won the start and led all the way ,2 nd was Emily , great
for the newly arrived boat, 3 rd Second Wind 4 th Ratatosch 5 th Kittiwich 6
th Recaa2 7 th Mandarin and 8 th Lady VG
It had been a tough day,
Saturday was the sort of sunny warm day those of us who live in Malaysia
expect , RSYC Commodore Rama had to attend RSYC s match racing program
and handed over Lady VG helm to PSC s sole Singapore representative Justin
with Emy as crew , the boat has a brand new suit of Lonton and Gray sails ,
with a level start some including Cabaret went left other including Lady VG
and Ratatosch went right which paid Cabaret was 5 th at the first mark of an
alternate sausage triangle sausage course but some smart spinnaker work by
Cab 7 s crew Emee had her challenging for second , for no good reason except
for great sailing wind Cabaret 7 decided to do another round letting Ratatosch
through to 2 nd but a well deserved victory for moonlighting skipper Justin
with Lady VG
Finishing order 1 st Lady VG 2 nd Rataosch 3 rd Cab 7 4 th Mandarin 5 th Second
Wind 6 th Recaa2 7 th Kittiwich 8 th Peach 2 sailed this time by Haro an
experienced helm from Holland crewed by Jamaica from the Philippines
Race 4 saw a continued battle between Lady VG and Cabaret with Ratosch in
close attendance , the rest of the fleet continued to fight amongst themselves
finishing order 1 st Cab 7 2 nd Lady VG 3 rd Ratatosch 4 th Mandarin 5 th
Kittiwich 6 th Second Wind 7 thPeach 2 8 th Recaa 2
Race 5 saw the usual battles all through the fleet , at the front Lady VG again
showed ability to be in right place at the right time finishing a comfortable
winner with 2 nd Cab 7 3 rd Ratatosch 4 th Mandarin 5 th Kittiwich 6
thSecond Wind 7 th Peach 2 8 th Recaa 2
Another great days sailing
and all to play for on the last day with Lady VG discarding a 9 th from day 1
Sunday dawned fine but soon some black clouds came over Pulau indah
causing all to run for the shelter of the club house veranda , the rain cleared
and decent breeze built up in a direction close to the previous day , the start
was delayed by a fishing boat with a 50m meter drifting net who we have
seen before crewed by a large and very vocal local lady , they insisted they
were drifting away from our line but as Simon had pointed out the tide was
ebbing still , eventually they were so close to Leopad Dream and in a torrent
of abuse took up their nets and set again below our leeward mark , Jeremy
failed to realise the first hooter for the race was 6 for postpone not 5 minutes
and made a fantastic start a minute early and having to return , most boats
were close to the line but all got away without incident against the first of the
flooding tide a group went left to the south shore , deeper water and others
including Lady VG and Ratatosch went right , Cab 7coming from the south
shore managed to get through on port and joined behind but more drama
saw a 5000 ton sand dedger came straight through the course scattering boats
left right and center ….. Cab7 followed by Mandarin managed to cross the
ships bows , which really paid as on tacking they could lay the windward mark
but still behind Lady VG and Ratatosch , Cab 7 under spinnaker sailed through
Ratatosch and managed to get along side and to windward of Lady VG and
with wind heading managed to maintain the place
Simon keeps marvellous records including the order at each mark ,on this a
desperate Cab 7 was 5 th at the leeward mark managing to round inside
Emily , this was the sausage so , easy to be swept away by the strengthening
tide then a gybe and a run to the finishing line ,
Finishing order 1 st Cab 7 2 nd Lady VG 3 rd Ratatosch 4 th Emily 5 th Peach
with the third combination of Belgian Peter and Dutch Harro 6 thKittiwich7 th
Mandarin 8 th Second Wind 9 th Recca2
For the 7 and final race Race Officer Simon set the longest course 2 sausage 2
tr mark iangles and a final rounding of the windward, really super sailing in a
strengthening breeze
Ratatosch led round the first mark but by the next round Cab7 was through to
win and seal the series , the established patern had Lady VG 2 nd Ratatosch 3
rd Mandarin 4 th Emily 5 th Kittiwich 6 th Second Wind 6 thSecond wind 7th
Peach 2 8 th and Recaa 2 9 th
The final order after 2 discards
1 st Caberet 7 780 5 points
2 nd Lady VG 621 8 points
3 rd Ratatosch 343 14 points
4 th Mandarin 464 18 points
5 th Second Wind 26 points
6 th Kittiwich 376 27 points
7 th Emily 691 28 points
8 th Peach 2 685 33 points
9 th Recca 2 292 35 points
It had been a marvellous series with so much enjoyment to participants
battling through out the fleet All the boats had been cleaned , Cab 7 and Lady
VG the last in but no one more than 3 weeks so usually no barnacles the first 2
had new or nearly new sails , the standard was much higher than in previous
years , a combination of upwind sailing against the tide had been the key ,
because of this course had been quite short the windward pin 0.4 of a mile
our thanks to Simon who can set such good courses with Chandran laying the
marks , our instructors Etah ( handling the flags ) Lan driving the committee
boat and the rescue boat kindly leant by MJ ( main job rescuing boats swept
up river by the tide on day 2 , Rahim who drove our green machine as the
mark laying boat , Patick acting as Pontoon Master it was fantastic watching
everyone rushing to stop boats coming at big speed with the tide , Rose for
manning the office and distributing the drinks , Vladimir and Benny for coming
back specially to provide such delicious bbq as a send off
We thank our sponsors VG OFFshore for their support which makes it all
possible but above all we thank the competitors for participating , sadly one
entrant could not take part due to injury and had 3 other boats which could
have been sailed ( out of our 18 boats )and hopefully will next year when RSYC
do not run an event on the same weekend
once again our Squibs performing superbly , not the ideal conditions with light
winds against a strong tide but every boat finished every race
In the end the Commodore and most experienced sailor at 80 was victorious ,
a very proud moment
Roll on 2025 !
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