Cape Panwa Hotel Phuket Raceweek 2019 – day 2
by Guy Nowell, Sail-World Asia 19 Jul 2019 12:12 BST
Fugazi. Fast. Cape Panwa Hotel Phuket Raceweek 2019 © Guy Nowell / Cape Panwa Hotel Phuket Raceweek
Thinking hard, and I reckon this is the wettest regatta I have ever seen. Two days of repeated and powerful squalls, with enough water falling out of the sky to float a battleship in a bathtub. Yes, this is wet season in Phuket, and some monsoon rain is to be expected, but this is ridiculous: this is not the Phuket we know and love. It’s a monster.
Yesterday started with sunshine and deteriorated rapidly. Today just started grim. The Race Committee was out early to try and find a good place to put a start line, and ordered an AP on shore. Some crews stayed ashore and watched the rain dripping off the palm trees from the sanctuary of the beach bar; others went afloat and waited on anchor for further orders. AP down at 0920h, then up again as another storm cell gathered into view, then down again 1020h. By 1140 all classes were under way and racing – and we could see yet another bundle of congealing water and rain heading in.
On board Phoenix, “we were about 300m from the windward mark when the skipper said, ‘we’re going to need a smaller headsail very soon,’ but the weather was moving so fast we never got the option to make the chance before it was upon us. We’ll need the smaller spinnaker for the run… hold that, I don’t think we need a spinnaker at all.”
All across the race course there were boats being mugged by breeze. Some hung on grimly, some took off at marginally sub-lightspeed, and some just couldn’t get the sails down fast enough. Top wind speed recorded on the Committee Boat was 41kts, “and then water got into the B&G gear and it started reading 80-100,” said RO Simon James.
Fugazi and Bonza went past the media boat “unreasonably fast.” Blue Nose picked up her skirts and followed suit. Very quickly, visibility dropped to mere metres, and the rain was coning down so hard that it hurt. It didn’t last very long, but it was vicious.
The result was a shortened course and an AP over H while everyone paused to regroup, but then more very nasty stuff swung into view on the radar, and ‘H’ became AP over A. Unfortunately the forecasts all predict more of the same, and continuing. It should be nice around Tuesday next week. Welcome to ‘Asia’s Windiest Regatta’, a tag line for this event many years ago!
Short Results
IRC 0
1. Team Hollywood
IRC 1
1. Megazip
2. East Marine Emagine
3. Aquarii
IRC 2
1. Phoenix
2. The Dragon
3. The Fox
IRC Cruising
1. Phalin
2. Lady Bubbly
3. Venture
Multihull Racing
1. Phantom V
2. Fugazi
3. Bonza
Full Results at https://www.phuketraceweek.com/results.php