The regatta is renowned for the spectacular backdrops to its races. Photo by Capt Marty.

It’s been a strange time in the life of Phuket’s regattas. First, 12 yachts had to be rescued from the beach after being stranded by unexpectedly heavy weather stranded them , forcing the cancellation of racing on the last day of the Phuket King’s Cup Regatta (report here).

Now Phuket’s second regatta has had to be rescued in its entirety. The Phang Nga Bay Regatta, which has been a key event in the Southeast Asian yachting calendar, was in danger of collapsing after its founder and main organiser, photographer and publisher John Everingham, declared himself to be unable to help with the 2011 event.

“My publishing company was lost in a take-over, and since then the magazines that were largely responsible for floating the regatta by attracting sponsors have virtually disappeared under their new ownership.  I … no longer have the resources to back this event as before,” Everingham explained.

The regatta – often referred to as the Fun Regatta – is renowned for the scenery it travels through as it moves from one part of Phang Nga Bay to the next, often with yachts rafting up together for the night before racing again the following day. In recent years it has regularly attracted as many as 60 entries, with some of the King’s Cup boats staying on to compete in Phang Nga Bay.

With Everingham backing away from it (though he hopes to have the resources to get involved in the 2012 event), there was a danger that this year there would be no regatta.

Now, however, the Ao Chalong Yacht Club (ACYC) which has been closely involved in organisation of the regatta for many years, has shouldered the burden, and the regatta will go ahead from February 9 to 13.

There will be a couple of changes. The most significant is a change in the name. It is now known officially as The Bay Regatta and, for this year at least, entries will be limited to 50 boats.

The ACYC have a big hill to climb. Commodore Mick Kealy remarked, ““There is a lot of work to be done quickly.” In particular, he noted that it is now very late in the day to attract the sponsors needed to make the event work.

But, he added, “Events like this, and the images they project of Phuket and the surrounding areas, are of tremendous value in boosting the region’s image, not just as one of the best yachting destinations in the world, but also as a high value tourism destination across the spectrum,” said Kealy.

“We’re hoping that marine leisure businesses – as well as other business in the three provinces targeting high-end clientele whose buying decisions are influenced by the lifestyle dream – will come forward and back the 2011 Bay Regatta.

“It would be great, too, if some ‘interested’ parties for whom the Andaman Sea is something of a ‘second sailing home’, could dip into their pockets for this critical year.”

Anyone interested in backing the event should email bayregatta@acyc-phuket.com. The event website is here.

The island’s third regatta, Phuket Race Week, will take place from July 20 to 24 next year.

Local club rescues Phang Nga Bay regatta is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.

A large part of the regatta fleet ended up stranded at Kata. Photo © by Guy Nowell.

Ray Roberts’ Evolution captured the silverware in the 24th Phuket King’s Cup Regatta, but the event will most likely be remembered  for the violent weather that dumped a dozen or more boats on the beach at Kata. (For dramatic footage of the beach on the morning of December 11, see Sail TV’s clip here.)

Three-metres waves on the night of December 10 snapped anchor lines or simply propelled the yachts, anchors dragging, onto the sand. While the catamarans were relatively unscathed and were simply lifted and carried above the high-water mark to safety, for the keel boats it was a disaster.

Some boats were rescued but by the evening others lay on their sides, half-buried in Kata Beach’s famed soft sand in a sad scene reminiscent of a mass beaching of whales. Skippers glumly wondered whether their boats could be salvaged or whether the repeated crashing of the waves had driven keels into hulls, causing irreparable damage.

The final day’s racing was canceled, as was the planned sail-past led by a Thai Navy frigate.

As darkness fell on the 11th, the flashes from cameras sparkled up and down the strand as tourists took snaps of this unexpected sight: kissy grins and victory signs with stricken yachts for background.

Celebrating: The crew of Xena in party mood after taking 2nd place in the premier class.

There was compensation for the sailors whose boats could not be moved, however: the final party of the regatta when, all sailing done, they could let their hair down and quench some mighty thirsts. And it was at the Kata Beach Resort – just a short stumble from the scenes of devastation.

For some crews there was also irony in the event. Miss Saigon, Ichi Ban and Team Sea Bees were among the beached boats, yet their crews picked up gold medals for winning the multihull, IRC 1 and IRC 2 classes respectively.

But after a few cocktails, glasses of beef or vino (or whatever floats your boat, as they say), there was time to enjoy the band and the fireworks and stuff into the back of the mind the thought of the hard work to come, digging and dragging in the morning to try and get their boats back in the sea.

Full regatta results and news can be seen at the King’s Cup Regatta website.

Racing class and King's Cup winner Evolution Racing (left) chases Team Premier round a mark. Photo © by Guy Nowell

Sad scene as regatta ends with boats beached at Kata is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.

The Phuket King's Cup.

The Phuket King’s Cup, which takes place from December 4 to 11, just keeps growing. Last year set a record with 111 entries. This year entries are already heading for 100. And it’s not just the number of yachts that’s growing. It’s the size of them.

Biggest yet - the 50m ketch 'Perseus'.

This year sees the regatta’s largest ever entrant – the megayacht Perseus. Skippered by Aaron Abramowitz, the Italian-built yacht is, at 50 metres, twice the size of the next-largest yacht, Ian Nicholson’s Hong Kong-based Intrigue.

The two-masted Perseus has been on a Pacific cruise for the past few months, taking part in regattas here and there. She’s capable of 14 knots, she has a saloon surrounded by large windows, an enclosed dining room and adjoining pantry, plus a separate library. Below decks, 10 guests can be comfortably accommodated, cared for by a crew of nine. Her outdoor spaces include a vast aft cockpit with protected lounging and dining, plus a large and comfortable fly-bridge with – yes – Jacuzzi.

But the fastest boats on the water will be the racing class (Perseus is in the Premier class). Regulars such as Neil Pryde on HiFi, Frank Pong on Jelik III and Ray Roberts on Evolution Racing are all signed up to battle for the King’s Cup. Also aiming to break records will be the multihulls, in  particular the Firefly 850s, which have been put in a class to themselves.

In addition, for the first time the King’s Cup will include a dinghy competition for children. The kids have already raced in three rounds of the Phuket Dinghy Series, and will compete in the fourth and final round during the regatta. The kids, all aged 15 or less, come from all over Thailand; the competitors signed up for the final round come from Sattahip, Songkhla, Koh Samui, Nakhon Sri Thammarat, Phang Nga and Phuket.

As always, each day of racing will be followed by a spectacular party, culminating in  the Royal Awards prize-giving party after the final day of racing.

Best places for watching the action are Kata Beach, off which most of the races start, and the headlands at either end of the bay.  For more information see the regatta website.

Phuket King’s Cup Regatta: Bigger and better is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.

Whew - it's a bit crowded here. At the start of one of the races in the 2009 Phang Nga Bay Regatta.

Nineteen boats are so far signed up for the “fun” regatta – the annual Phang Nga Bay Regatta, which goes under the gun on February 4.

More boats can be expected to join in the next couple of weeks – there were 50 entries in the 2009 event. It’s one of those nerve-racking things that regatta organisers in Phuket have to put up with; very few boats are registered until the last minute.

This year’s regatta will see racing on four days – the 4th to the 7th, with registration on the 3rd.
Partying will begin before the regatta with the opening event, as in the past few years, at the Chandara Resort in Ao Por.

Conveniently close to the Ao Por Grand Marina, the resort is now managed by the Absolute group, promising to make it an entertaining evening with the potential for painful starts for some of the less serious crews.

As in last year’s regatta, there will be six classes: Racing, Cruising A and B, multihulls, bareboat charters (last year this was filled entirely with Darwin-class boats from Sunsail) and the one-design Firefly class.

Although the regatta started out 12 years ago as a casual antidote to the very serious King’s Cup Regatta, serious competitors are by no means excluded.

Last year’s Racing Class winner, for example, was Yo!2, owned and skippered by Peter Ahern. Ahern in based in Perth, Western Australia, and his yacht is usually berthed in Port Dickson in Malaysia. You don’t come all that way to drift around the bay swilling beer.

For more details, visit the regatta website.

Entries trickle in for Phang Nga Bay regatta is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.

Andrew de Bruin and Donna Stephans (sail 1914) in the thick of the action during the 2007 Tasar Worlds in Phuket - Photo by Duncan Worthington.

Eight of the internationally popular, fast, Tasar dinghies will appear for the first time at this year’s Phuket King’s Cup Regatta, battling for honours in their own special event, which will take place on November 28 and 29, just before the main regatta.

The battle of the Tasars is the brainchild of Andrew de Bruin and Donna Stephens, last seen in competition in Phuket during the Tasar Worlds in 2007. They placed 53 out of a fleet of 59, but despite getting nowhere near the silverware, were plainly bitten by the bug.

After the Worlds in 2007, a fleet of four Tasars raced regularly at the Phuket Yacht Club in Ao Yon. The owners continued to learn more each time they raced and, with conditions usually 10-12 knots and temperatures around 32ºC, there’s little to complain about even when capsized, as the water is a welcoming 28ºC.

Since then, de Bruin and friends have been actively seeking Phuket buyers and have now confirmed that four more Tasars are on the way from Australia. This will bring the local fleet to eight crews, all of which intend to enter the Phuket King’s Cup Regatta event.

King’s Cup Race Director, Simon James, said, “It’s great to see more smaller boats and new classes adding to the already diverse fleet the Phuket King’s Cup Regatta attracts each year.”

For de Bruin, eight is not enough. “We’d like to get a bit of growth happening here and, who knows, we might be able to field a more competitive group when we host the 2015 Worlds again in Phuket.”

The Tasar fleet will be joined by an Optimist fleet which will also compete on the weekend before the main regatta.

Tasar dinghies set to do battle at Phuket King’s Cup Regatta is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.

Action from Phuket Race Week. - Photo courtesy Image Asia.

The weather, the scenery, the after-race parties – all of these have combined to put Phuket’s three major regattas on the Asian sailing map. And interest is growing beyond Asia.

After what competitors described as the best racing yet, Phuket Raceweek, held during the blustery southwest monsoon conditions of July, has opted to join the Asian Yachting Grand Prix (AYGP) circuit.

The circuit already includes the Phuket King’s Cup regatta in December, along with the China Coast Regatta, the Hongkong-Vietnam race, the Raja Mudra and Royal Langkawi regattas in Malaysia, the Singapore Straits Regatta, the President’s Cup in the Philippines and two more in Thailand -  the Top of the Gulf and Samui regattas.

Neil Pryde, skipper of the current AYGP title holder, Hi Fi, which competed in Raceweek for the first time this year, labeled the event “ a great regatta that should grow”. It already has. The first event, in 2004, had just 19 locally-based boats competing. This year saw 33 boats on the water, including crews from Australia, New Zealand, Austria, the Netherlands, Britain, Denmark, Japan, Ireland and Canada.

Meanwhile, the organisers of the island’s oldest regatta, the Phuket King’s Cup, have announced that one of Britain’s top young sailors is to compete in the regatta in early December.

He is Matthew Mee, 22, whose wins include the 2004 Merlin Rocket championships and the 2009 GP14 national championship in Britain. He is widely tipped to be picked for the British team in the London Olympics in 2012. He also excels in Fireball racing.

He will be racing aboard the Platu Tuay Lek, owned by local sail training outfit Sail In Asia whose boss, Mike Downard, commented, “We are proud to have Matt and team racing our boat.”

International interest zeroes in on Phuket regattas is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.

The Phuket 8s - a class of sportboats made on the island - are regular class winners in Race Week. But the competition's getting tougher...

The problem with both of these regattas was the wind – all too often there wasn’t any, and crews sat around in the blazing sun with sails flapping dismally, rather wishing they were onshore in the shade with a nice frosty beer.

What yachties wanted was plenty of wind, spinnakers bursting, boats capsizing left, right and centre (though not their own boats, naturally), and that overall sensation of being in a very large washing machine.

Grenville Fordham of Image Asia and his then-offsider Andy Dowden, who was heavily involved in the King’s Cup in the earlier days, decided to give them what they wanted – a regatta in June or July, in the middle of the southwest monsoon season, when wind is pretty much a given.

The idea appealed to Six Senses, which runs the Evason Resort in Rawai and which became – and remains – the main sponsor for the event. The Evason is the venue for all the after-race parties that are so essential for salt-crusted crewmen and women just dying to celebrate a win or to forget the day’s dreadful performance.

The first event went in 2004 off well, with 19 mostly locally-based boats. It’s grown in the intervening years. Last year 45 yachts of all shapes and sizes took part, and Race Week has now amassed enough glamour to have attracted Jaguar-Land Rover as a co-sponsor for the 2009 regatta.

Wind, as promised, has been delivered each year; in one year there were even waterspouts for the yachts to dodge.

Those with a bit of cash to spare can charter a boat for the event (see the website). Those who don’t may want to try asking around at the Ao Chalong Yacht Club, off Chao Fa East Rd, to see whether anyone is looking for crew. This year’s regatta, the sixth, runs from July 22 to 26.

Phuket Raceweek – A Regatta That Matters is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.