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Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club Around The Island Race In association with Simpson Marine

In spite of a lack of mooring space at Kellett Island which meant that most competitors had a very early start to look forward to, 248 entrants found their way from all corners of the region to the Victoria Harbour start of this year’s Around the Island Race.

Race officer Inge Strompf-Jepsen and DRO Brenda Davies had 90 minutes of start sequence to look forward to on two lines, with a strong ebb tide and very little breeze to play with. Nevertheless, all classes started as planned, with no general recalls but plenty of individual boats called OCS. Most of those opted not to try and fight their way back to the line, preferring to accept a 5% time penalty instead.

Although not great for the sailors, the 200+ boat parking lot off Hung Hom was an impressive sight, but with reports from Lei Yue Mun and Junk Bay of a fresh breeze establishing itself, it was a relief at 1030hrs to finally see the front of the fleet pick up speed and start to race.

There were eyes everywhere on the 26nm course and Strompf-Jepsen was constantly kept abreast of wind conditions. With steady, if unexciting, breeze through beyond Stanley Gate, she toyed with the idea of allowing the boats to continue to Green Island however with only 0-2kts at Cyberport and with RP72 Jelik in sight, a shortened course at Ap Lei Chau was considered to be the best course of action.

Jelik claimed line honours just under 3 hours after her start, with TP52 FreeFire a worthy second on the water some 17 minutes later. From then on, a wall of spinnakers descended on the finish line until the final boat, Shahna Bacal, crossed just before 1600hrs.

Provisional results show 420 RHKYC ‘Sharks’ sailors Calum Gregor and Wilhelm Christensson coming out on top of the ATI results, with another 420, Sea School 1 helmed by Ka Chun SIU in second place and Etchells Jezebel helmed by Peter Backe in third. The overall prizegiving will take place at RHKYC Kellett Island on Monday 17 November starting at 1900hrs.

The provisional results are published at http://www.rhkyc.org.hk/atirresults.aspx