True Racing Spirit - RHKYC at the NYYC Invitational Cup presented by Rolex

Sept. 15, 2011 - PRLog -- The Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club (RHKYC) has entered a team to represent Hong Kong in the New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup.

Racing began on Tuesday and at the end of Thursday’s races, the RHKYC team is lying 5th overall in a 22 boat fleet representing the cream of the world’s amateur sailing fleet, including many past Olympians, and all remains to play with three more races to go.

The previous night, members of the RHKYC team had been up late, with technicians working until 0100hrs to try and fix an instrument problem that had been plaguing the boat allocated to Hong Kong.  The New York Yacht Club (NYYC), hosts for the Corinthian event pulled out all stops in the effort to fix the issue and replace the processor but a solution proved elusive and the RHKYC team was entering a third day of racing at a serious disadvantage in the tricky inshore conditions.

Skipper Nick Burns and NYYC agreed that, if the RHKYC had to race again with only 50% of the boat instruments working, then the only way to redress such a handicap was to require all the boats in the fleet to reduce their instruments to half capacity.  

The fleet left the dock under an ‘L-flag’ informing all boats of the restriction they would sail under in order to even the playing field.     Fortunately, due to fog, the start of the race was delayed until 1145hrs  which allowed extra time for an expert brought in by the NYYC to remain on the RHKYC boat in a last ditch attempt to make things work.

With the whole fleet waiting anxiously,  and all the boats out on the water, 45 minutes before the start, Tiger Mok, RHKYC’s tactician was able to radio the Race Committee to inform them that “all systems were go”.  

Back on shore Nick Burns said “The RHKYC team is grateful for the superb efforts of the NYYC in ensuring an even playing field in this regatta; that is what good competition is about”.

And good competition is what they had – the RHKYC team won the crucial start in the second race and led the fleet for half of the race until its fore-sail came out of its foil and the team was forced to drop its sail.  At the time the RHKYC boat was just in front of the two race favourites - the New York Yacht Club and the Royal Canadian Yacht Club team, both sailing in their own boats.  With quick crew work, the RHKYC team was able to re-hoist the sail and lost only a few places to finish a tight fought fifth in the 22 boat fleet.  

The RHKYC is represented by Nick Burns, Patrick Pender, Tiger Mok, Joachim Isler, Anthony Day, Peter Backe, Lauren Mead, Tim Storey, Peter Austin and Jim Gregory (owner’s representative on the boat)

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Sailing and rowing club. One of the oldest and most prestigious clubs in Hong Kong, RHKYC today has evolved into a multi-faceted and cosmopolitan organisation and its membership enjoys a comprehensive range of facilities, both afloat and ashore.