China Cup International Regatta 2010 

Eight BKA sailors have been invited to take part in the 4th China Cup International Regatta. Read their blog here....

Mark Lees, Kirsty Matthews, Tom Forrester Coles, Henry Smith, Oli Egan, Chris Dorey, James Brown and Stephen Aiken have been invited to sail with Shenzhen Universiade at the 2010 event (29 Oct - 1 Nov). The team has sponsored all their costs and consiquently they will be sailing as Shenzhen Universiade Sailing Team. The event is set to attract over 60 boats and 600 sailors hailing from more than 20 nations around the World - a great opportunity for the BKA sailors to network and pick up some good international expirience.

Read the sailors' event blog here...

Monday 1st November

James Brown

Rumours concerning the format of the final days racing were rife around the marina. With fewer coastal races having been held than expected, we entered the final day expecting up to two of these to take place. However as we motored out onto the race course the light breeze we had inside the marina petered out and it was clear that long races around the archipelagos in the bay would not be possible.

What little wind there was shifted up to 40 degrees, with the right-handed phase generally bringing lighter conditions down the course. The eagerness of the fleet to begin racing resulted in the days first general recall, sending us to the back of the queue. The major difference for the fleet’s final days starts, was that no major collisions took place. Over the last couple of days I seemed to have witnessed more start-line t-bones than from all my Solent racing combined.

The light winds made the starts extremely tough, with helms from all boats complaining about a lack of steerage, inevitably the second start went the same way as the first and ended in another general recall. With the black flag finally up racing got underway. We finished the race with another disappointing 20th and with the breeze now barely rising above 4 knots true, the race committee thankfully called time on the regatta.

Sunday 31st October

Oli Egan

Extremely light and shifty winds made for a challenging day on the water. The team got off to a bad start in race 3 being called over the line at the pin end, as we discovered going back in a 40.7 takes a long time in 4 knots of windspeed!

However we worked our way back up, using the large shifts and gusts to eventually finish 5th. Race 4 showed us that getting a bad start was hard to come back from,  as mark rounding became carnage in less than 4 knots of wind and strong tide resulted in us finishing 20th.

Race 5 started well being one of the lead boats, we stuck to our plan to try and get left to be on the correct side of the shifts, however for the first time right payed massively and we rounded the top mark near the back of the fleet alongside some of the other top teams. This meant working hard to sail through the fleet to finish 20th.

As a team we are continuing to learn the skills needed to race in the far east, the racing is held in conditions not usually experienced in the UK and defiantly would not be racing in - very light with huge shifts and large rolling waves!

Special mention must go to Steve after picking up a stomach bug in China, for continuing to sail whilst ignoring bouts of projectile vomiting!

Saturday 30th October 2010

Stephen Aiken

The second day of training brought further improvements to the 40.7 team, a consistent 20 knots helped us to get the rig set up finalised and no trimmers jumping off certainly helped. 

The Coastal race or cruise as it turned out to be (RHKYC was informed a few hours before the skippers breifing that anyone without a valid race permit for Hong Kong waters would be arrested) consisted of a 5 hour beat into 15kts, although 25 degrees made it a little more bareable, we have all decided that sailing in the UK in winter is a stupid idea. 

After arriving in Shenzhen and finally clearing customs we caught the 45minute bus to our hotel and opening ceremony where all crews received medals (I presume for the achievement of making it through customs and finding the hotel) we headed home for an early night ready for a 6:30 start in the morning

Wednesday 27th October 2010

Chris Dorey

We arrived on Tuesday morning (26th Oct) to pick up our boat after our 18 hours of flying to get here. As we were all tired after this flight we spent our day sorting out the boat and getting it up to racing spec.  

We got up early this morning to get out sailing, we were expecting this to be a light wind event but when we got out there on the water it was blowing 15 to 20kts! We spent the day working on our manoeuvres doing short windward leeward’s and just generally getting use to sailing these boats. This went well and everyone was sailing well together, this has been helped by most of the crew have been sailing together on the Farr 45 Kolga for the last couple of weeks. This training was going well until during a tack James Brown was tailing the new jib sheet and the knot on the clew of the jib came un tied and JB did what only can be described as a back-flip over the top rail and into the water, luckily he managed to grab onto another rope and pull himself out of the water!! Fortunately with the air temperature out here he didn’t spend the rest of the day cold, but he was a bit gutted about the fact that he lost his sun glasses!  

Tomorrow is our final day of training before the costal race, from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, China, starts on Friday (29th Oct). The main plan tomorrow is to set up the rig and continue to work on our boat handling.