One Global Tomes Cup 2023 at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club
by Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club 2 May 07:33 BST
29 April 2023
The final constituent event of the Top Dog Trophy Series, the One Global Tomes Cup, was held on 29 April in an easterly breeze of 4 to 5kts. 61 boats turned out to compete to be crowned the most successful boat of the season.
In this pursuit-style race, the Pandora fleet set off first at 1400hrs, followed by other faster classes with staggered start times to chase down the front runners before the projected target finish time of 1630hrs. Race Officer Gareth Williams set a start line just off Hung Hom and sent the fleet off for two and a half laps between Tai Koo Shing and Hung Hom before finishing at Kai Tak. The wind held and slightly built up during the start sequence before the rain arrived towards the end of the race.
A valiant effort was made by Pandoras Windfall and Solstice as they led until the third rounding of the windward mark at Tai Koo Shing. Impala, Impala 1, chased steadily behind, eventually overtaking both Pandoras on the final upwind leg taking the finish gun at 16:36:23, followed by Pandora Windfall in 2nd place and Solstice in 3rd.
Impala 1 skipper Mike Burrell gave credit to his amazing crew "Impala 1 has altogether 300 years of sailing experience, and there's a very well-known situation that when we win, it's always the crew and when we don't win, it's always the skipper. We had the crew working very hard today and so we won. As the skipper, I just sat there and drove the boat; it was all the crew's work. We were very lucky today because it was light wind and it favoured the Impalas, so the fast boats did not catch us up quite as fast and we were very lucky because the whole series was with light winds."
The win not only guaranteed that Mike Burrell lifted the Tomes Cup, but it also ensured Impala 1's name will be engraved on the Top Dog Trophy for the second time, followed by Henry Wong's Footloose in 2nd place and Chair Kui Wang' on Solstice in 3rd place. Burrell was delighted to lift-up Top Dog Trophy again 12 years later since he first took it in 2011 "It feels good to know that there's still life in the old dog! Maybe we should plan to win it again in 2035!"