The Typhoon series 2016 and the Summer Saturday series have now finished their first races. The Typhoon series race was on Sunday June 5 and the Saturday series race took place last Saturday, June 11, 2016.
Although both of these races were island races the remainder of the Saturday Series races will feature geometric courses inside Port Shelter. For the Typhoon Series, geometric races take place on just 3 dates covering 5 races of the total of 9 races planned. All Summer Saturday races start inside Port Shelter, whereas Typhoon Series races, designed for more accomplished sailors, normally start a little further out to sea.
For the HHYC UK Sailmaker Summer Saturday Series, a total of 32 boats turned out for the Island course in a southerly 8kt breeze accompanied by rain and drizzle. All boats covered the same course starting inside Port Shelter, sailed to Trio Island and back via the islands of Steep and Table to finish at Little Palm Beach (LPB) a distance of 10Nm. “Lighthorse”, “Goddess” and “Vixen” were the 3 leading boats in the IRC category; “Merlin” outpaced “Free Fire It’s My Pleasure” in a two boat race in the Sportsboat category; “Tara”, “Ichiban” and “Bits and Pieces” were the top three in the HKPN and “Celines”, “Phyloong III” and “Maiden Hong Kong” headed the Dragon Class.
A large fleet of 53 boats covering 7 classes took part in race 1 of the HHYC Quest Yachting Typhoon Series 2016 in a light easterly breeze of 5kts. Most classes took in the islands of Bluff, Trio, Bay and Table finishing at LPB, a distance of 16Nm. IRC-A boats sailed a longer route of Basalt, Steep, Bluff, Bay and Table to finish at LPB (20Nm), while the HKPN-B fleet took a shorter 10Nm route of Table, Bluff, Bay and Table to also finish at LPB.
Early markers in the series have been laid down by “Zannekin”, “XF” and “Signal 8” in IRC-A; “Seawolf”, “Sell Side Dream” and “Blue Bunny” in IRC-B; and “Dexter II”, “Gambit” and “Moll” in IRC-C. In Sportsboats “Merlin” came first followed by “Ricochet” and “Catch 22”; “Jive” outpaced “Jazz” and “Bumphead” in the J80s; and in HKPN-A “Shikari” came first on handicap ahead of “Tornado” and “Bits and Pieces”; and “Sleeepy Pigggy” was less sleepy than “Lazy Piggy” and “Geko” in HKPN-B.
This coming Sunday, June 19 there will be 2 Geometric races for the Typhoon fleet.
