PRESS RELEASE RACE DAY 5
LANGKAWI, 11 JANUARY 2020 – A sunrise departure for the final day of the BRRLIR in Kuah Harbour! As the weather forecast predicted very light airs, all boats were out on the harbor early today to make sure that “the early boat catches the wind!”
A superb day materialized on the picturesque harbor with the Mat Chin Chang range and Mount Gunung Raya dominating the view of the island from the race committee boat. The day was made even better when a steady five to six knot breeze from the east north east kicked in at around 1100 hours. This was enough wind for our very experienced Principal Race Officer (PRO) Simon James to be able to set great courses for all seven classes to enjoy one final race and another memorable day of sailing.
The day was made very entertaining by seeing how well the various yachts and crews were able to handle much lighter airs as the wind today was considerably lower than the four previous days.
In the racing class Ray Roberts’ Team Hollywood again claimed victory to record a tally of nine consecutive wins after a disqualification in the first race. A brilliant exhibition of a top boat with a top crew! THA72 with Don Whitcraft and his crew gained second place and third was Rolf Heemskerk’s efileConnect only three seconds behind on corrected time.
Mata Hari skippered by Vincent Chen was victorious today in the IRC1 class with Kazuki Kihara’s Char Chan securing second place, only eight seconds ahead of Uminoko in third spot.
Another exciting start was assured when the IRC2 and Sportboats were again combined to make the most of the time left for fair winds as according to our forecast the wind would fade away after 1400 hours.
In IRC2 Niels Degenkolw wrapped up an excellent week with another top spot followed by BeiHai China in second place. MSA-MSN continued their domination of the Sportboat class with another win.
Bob McIntyre provided a surprise today coming home ahead of the much lighter Fetz Ma winning the Multihull race.
The Club Cruising and WhiteSail classes made a combined start and due to deteriorating winds their races were both shortened to finish at the last Gate in the course. Marikh was successful in winning the Club Cruising class by a margin of only seven seconds on corrected time over VG Offshore in a thrilling race.
In the WhiteSail category Mohd Izzard’s Dash won today’s race with Gwell picking uo the second place. Both of these yachts ahead of the bigger, heavier Chantique who took third place. Qwell also took out the Classic Challenge first place reveling in the lighter wind.
In summary everyone enjoyed a very successful, very well organized regatta with a total of ten races over the five days of competition. The weather was very kind giving us fair winds and great results. Congratulations to all concerned.
