Adrenaline is set to soar as the 17^th Royal Langkawi International Regatta (RLIR) 2019

LANGKAWI, 7 JANUARY 2019 – Adrenaline is set to soar as the 17^th Royal Langkawi International Regatta (RLIR) 2019 begin tomorrow and sailing enthusiasts prepare to sail their boats and endure challenging wind conditions in Langkawi between 8 and 12 January, 2019.

Organised by the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club (RLYC), the RLIR 2019 will welcome 35 new entrants and will witness the re-emergence of veteran sailors from 8 countries – Australia, United States of America, Russia, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, and Thailand. Malaysia will be represent by 19 sailing boats.

All sailing boats will compete for prestigious titles under seven classes in the highly anticipated annual sailing event – namely the Racing, IRC 1, IRC 2, Sportsboat, Club Cruising, Multihull, and White Sail.

Trophies and awards include the coveted Prime Minister’s Challenge Trophy (Racing Class), the LADA- International Racing Class Challenge Trophy (IRC 1 Class), RLIR- International Racing Class Challenge Trophy (IRC 2 Class), the Commodore’s Challenge Cup (Club Cruising Class), Langkawi Sports Trophy (Sportsboat Class), as well as the Malaysia Multihull Challenge Cup (Multihull Class).

In addition to this, the RLIR 2019 will see the presence of 15 support boats that will accompany the sailing boats, ferrying the committess involved, safety and rescue teams as well as the media and jury teams.

Tayfun Koksal, General Manager of the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club said January was once again a thrilling period of the year for sailing community and the RLIR 2019 has exponentially grown to become an important fixture on the international sailing calendar.

“We aim to bring this prestigious event to greater heights and will continue to position Malaysia and Langkawi in particular, as a prominent saiing location whilst promoting sailing and boosting sports tourism for the country,” he said.

Tayfun noted that participating sailing boats had begun practice race today on 7 January, Monday, and sailing fans can expect 2-3 races per day, depending on the daily wind conditions.

“This will be a challenging regatta. Under the Racing Class, we have THA72 – they won the previous two regattas – defending their title. Meanwhile, a strong challenger from past regattas – Team Hollywod – is back in action. Not to mention that we have three (3) competitive Malaysian sailing boats – Zuhal, Uranus and SCS Janda Baik – under the same Racing Class,” he said.

He also added that under IRC 1, there are 10 competitors. Of the 10, home grown Mata Hari KL Registry and Japanese team Char Chan, will cross paths for a tight fight. Mata hari was the winner of the past four regattas under this class.

RLIR 2019 is organised in partnership with Tourism Malaysia, the Ministry of Youth and Sports Malaysia, the Malaysia Sailing Association and the Langkawi Development Authority (LADA).