Black Baza wins IRC overall in the Volvo Hong Kong to Hainan Race
by Koko Mueller, RHKYC 6 Nov 2016 07:23 GMT
3-5 November 2016
All boats have now crossed the finish line in the 390nm Category 1 offshore Volvo Hong Kong to Hainan Race.
The smallest and final boat in the fleet from the IRC Racer 2 division to finish was Kjartan Furset's Sunfast 3600 Ymir at 23:04:00 on Saturday night. Also from IRC Racer 2, Adrian Bell's Azuree 46 Outlaw crossed the line 5 ½ hours before Ymir at 17:39:10 taking the win in their division. Outlaw had a very nice breeze coming into Sanya of 8-10kts, unlike the earlier arrivals into Sanya.
Kjartan Furset said, "The race was a bit tough in the beginning; very bumpy seas. It took a bit to get used to the boat in these conditions as it was our first real big downwind race. Surprisingly it wasn't very wet on board - the Rolex China Sea Race was far wetter this year. The first night was a bit rough but the rest of the sail was beautiful. The highlight of our race was surfing down the waves in the big rolling swell. Our top speed was around 18 or 19kts. One thing I wish we had done before the race was spend more time on crew training; we tore a spinnaker and it would have been good to be more prepared for this. The last two days of the race were absolutely beautiful, nice breeze, very very nice sailing."
IRC Racer 0 was won by Sam Chan's TP52 FreeFire on corrected time of 1d 18h 24m 21s after a fantastic run. Seng Huang Lee's 100ft Super Maxi Scallywag came in second in IRC 0, took Line Honours and cemented themselves in the record books with a record of 25h 22m 33s after a very quick race with top speeds of a 34kts!
IRC Overall and IRC Racer 1 was won by Anthony Root's Ker Custom 42 Black Baza after a cracking race they arrived at 23:09:54 on Friday night ahead of the last IRC 0 boat, Ernesto Echauz's TP52 Standard Insurance Centennial.
Volvo Hong Kong to Hainan Race website, www.hkhainanrace.com