Phuket, 4th December 2014 – Consistent winds made a very welcome return for Day Four of the Phuket King’s Cup Regatta, with the best of conditions apparently on the way tomorrow. All classes sailed today, with some exceptionally tight action long with some big winning margins also.
The King’s Cup has this year played host to an awesome offering of IRC class racing, especially at the high-tech “Grand Prix” end of the classes such as in IRC0, where Karl Kwok’s Team Beau Geste has been involved in serious competition with Neil Pryde’s HiFi. In Race 6, the teams were once again within a whisker of each other. Team Beau Geste took the win by a scant 45 seconds on corrected times, with Neil’s team trying desperately to leverage their handicap advantage. There’s nothing in it points-wise going into the final day’s showdown.
In IRC1 Race 6, EFG Mandrake ramped up their efforts to come back strong on the penultimate day. The Hong Kong racer took the win to give rivals Island Fling and her skipper Paul Winkelmann something to consider on Friday; Paul’s crew are still ahead in the standings however, with tomorrow the decider. Mandrake is able to use a free discard to remove one of their disappointing 4th place finishes, helping to balance things out come D-Day.
Hannes Waimer’s TBG Team Premier made easy work of it out there again today, finishing well in front of the IRC2 pack. Singaporean team WindSikher were second in today’s Race 6. Hannes’ team is cruising top of the table in the IRC2 points.
Foreign Affair was victorious in IRC3, beating Team Kata Rocks 1 and both Royal Thai Navy boats. Due to the consistent performance of Team Kata throughout much of the week, things are tight points-wise, with tomorrow’s race the decider. This class exhibits a very exciting close to a memorable Phuket King’s Cup Regatta.
Malaysian entry Zuhrah beat out the powerful Pine-Pacific team in Premier class, a huge margin on the waves resulting in close corrected times at the end. Pine-Pacific is just a single point in front of Starlight at the top of group.
In Bareboat Charter, Russian team Uhuru placed first followed by Papaya (Ukraine) and Lychee (Russian), while in the B group, Russian entry Sarawadee placed top in a very large fleet of entrants.
Sailplane took the Open Charter race ahead of Kata Rocks 3, leaving Tony Pfeiffer’s Kata team just a couple of points clear. These two rivals are well ahead of the rest of the group, and really enjoying their private competition.
In the Firefly 850 Sports class, Hans Rahmann and his crew took their second victory with a top finish in Race 6 today; there was not a great deal in it time-wise, with Advance Racing tailing closely behind (no handicaps in this one-make series, of course). Voodoo is only two points clear at the top, over Twin Sharks.
Of the Multihull Racing boats, Alan Carwadine’s Asia Catamarans Hurricane took the win by a considerable margin once again, staking an early claim to class honors in 2014. They sit pretty at the top and are unlikely to be beaten come regatta end.
Thai team Sansiri (Windstar) did exceptionally well to come through for another win, and are favorites to win their class. The Classics headed out for Race Four today, although S.Y. Ravensong was the only ship to finish. In Multihull Cruising, Masami Yamashita’s crew of Minnie came home well ahead of rival boat Star Fruit once again. In Cruising class, Skyelark was the winner, skippered by Dan and Ern Bower.
NOTE: All results are provisional.
– PKCR Media
