What a great event 8 races in 2 days. Competitors aging from early teens to “80 years young”. Yes “80” this is not a typing error Dr Michael Chia is still sailing F16 Catamarans, which is well worth taking your hats off too, as for us young bodied mortals we now have no excuses. Michael may not have finished all the races but he still pushes his F16 Viper to the limit in every race he competes in. Twenty four cats signed up and hit the waters off Changi Sailing Club for what has to be one of the most successful regattas in recent memory.
Thanks go to the sponsors, as without them regattas would be a whole lot harder to organise. Those who "do what werkz," Brewerkz Singapore sponsored the good brew for all the sailors, those who "do what hurtz," Pro Sail Asia came up with some prizes along with Evolution Sails... so a big round of thanks to all these companies.
On Saturday it looked as our NE Monsoon winds had disappeared as a low-level haze created a grey backdrop - not a good sign! At least the departing aircraft from Changi International where still taking off to the North which was a good sign!
A new bunch of race courses were drawn up for the event with varying degrees of 'difficulty' so that the differences between the Sport and Race Divisions could be accounted for. As Changi sits right on the side of a busy shipping lane, the Club is not allowed to anchor any temporary marks to the seabed. As such, the courses consist of using combinations of navigation marks. Each of the six different courses was enjoyed by all competitors.
Entrants and the overall winners in the Sport Cats (platforms without dagger boards) were the Singapore National Sailors on their Hobie 16's. The Race Cats also had a special entrant of it’s own in the form of Wearn Haw, who has recently returned to Singapore after a successful Extreme 40 Campaign aboard Team China. Wearn Haw is one of Singapore's Olympians and he adapted quickly to the Taipan F16 with a great result in the first race. Unfortunately, the Taipan is rather shorter and narrower than the X40 and so Wearn Haw had a little bit of a nose dip! Naturally, if you give a platform to a skilled sailor they'll settle in rapidly... We're now looking forward to having Wearn Haw jump onto a Viper in two weeks time for Changi Sailing Clubs 2010 “ACCLAIM” Monsoon Regatta.
