The milestone of the 20th Royal Langkawi International Regatta (RLIR) was successfully achieved. The wind gods were very kind all week long so that 10 races could be held under ideal conditions. It was a very competitive regatta with 32 participating boats from 12 countries and 240 crew members.

One of this year’s highlights was the new generation of multihulls, the super-fast X40 catamaran ‘Parabellum’. On the other end was our regular evergreen one hundred plus years old Eveline. The really wide range of all different types of yacht makes this regatta so popular and successful.

The Closing Ceremony, Overall and Grand Prize Presentations took place at the Poolside of the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club with many VIPs and guests of honor celebrating the 20th RLIR. The delicious food and fantastic entertainment made this very successful event very memorable.

The winners of this year’s regatta challenge trophies are:

The Prime Minister’s Challenge Trophy goes to ‘Witchcraft’ skippered by Nick Burns in the Racing class who won all 10 races.

The LADA-IRC Challenge Trophy was earned by ‘Mata Hari’ helmed by Vincent Chan in the IRC 1 class. In a very closely contested class ‘Mata Hari’ finished just one point ahead of the runner-up ‘Char Chan’.

The PSC-IRC 2 Challenge Trophy went to Jeremy Camps’ ‘The Blue Angel’ in the IRC 2 class who won 8 out of 9 races and was well ahead of his next rival ‘Piccolo”.

The Langkawi Sports Challenge Trophy was won by the ‘RSYC Racing Team’ in the Sports Boats class. Skipper Rizal Mahadi Sazili won 7 out of 10 races.

The Malaysia Multihull Challenge Trophy was well earned by ‘Twin Sharks’ skippered by John Newnham. The new generation racing catamaran ‘Parabellum’ was a fierce challenger in the Multihull class and finished only two points behind.

And finally the RLYC Commodore’s Challenge Trophy went to ‘Marikh’ helmed by Wan Fadli Wan Ahmad who scored equally with second place ‘Kimikimi’ in the Club class. Vincent Chan’s ‘Mata Hari’ was a popular winner of the Tunku Abdullah Sportsmanship Award.

A big thank you goes to the Principle Race Officer, Simon James, who, for the 18th time efficiently and very professionally organized 5 days of marvelous racing for this milestone 20th Royal Langkawi International Regatta.

Special thanks also go to Selvam Mookken, the chairman of the jury, Azlan Abdullah, the Executive Director of Royal Langkawi Yacht Club and 20th RLIR Director and Inspector Muhamad Khairul Fadhli bin Kamarudin, the safety marshal, for organizing and carrying out this event.

Very heartening and wonderful to see the many young volunteers from University Malaysia Terengganu (UMT) who were instrumental in manning the ‘Start Boat’, ‘Mark boats A, B and C’ and the ‘Pin boat’ for “marking” the various courses decided by the P.R.O. These relative youngsters will be the backbone of future successful regattas and great to see them so enthusiastically “learning the ropes”.

The media always do a sterling job reporting, promoting and publicizing this event and once again have helped to make this regatta the huge success it was. And of course, without our skippers and their crews there would be no regatta. Thank you for the continued support of our seasoned regulars and a big welcome to all newcomers. See you all next year for the 21st RLIR.