MOJITO Blasts Around Hong Kong Islands!

Veteran J/Sailors Love Windy, Wavy Conditions
(Hong Kong, China)- Hong Kong's largest and most inclusive sailing event, the Tommy Bahamas Around Island Race, featured more than 200 sailing boats, together with outrigger canoes and coastal rowing boats.  All teams battled it out over the 26nm course that is known as the “Round Island Race” (e.g. all around the islands that comprise Hong Kong)!  Cool race, spectacular vistas of the world-renown city and breathtaking views of the ginormous, lush, jungle green mountain-tops. Anyone looking out of their window in Hung Hom or Chai Wan on the morning of the start would see hundreds of boats converging on Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour from every point of the compass for Hong Kong’s biggest annual celebration of sail and paddle on the water.

The Around the Island Race became an annual event in 1983, however its origins go back to 1864 when six boats raced around Hong Kong Island to Starboard (clockwise) and Hong Kong’s sailors have since regarded this route as a tricky challenge with unpredictable wind shifts.  The race course features a 26nm circumnavigation of Hong Kong Island to starboard, which has been sanctioned by Hong Kong Marine Department since 2003. This year there was record-setting breeze, so the Royal Hong Kong YC PRO, Ms Inge Strompf-Jepsen, managed to fire off twenty separate starts for sailboats at RHKYC’s Kellett Island clubhouse.

With the replenishment of the northeast monsoon filling in overnight, many competitors took one look at the conditions and decided that prudence was the better part of valor.  This included the majority of the beach cat classes, where even the most battle hardened sailors took one look at the conditions whipped up by the 15-18kt easterly in the harbour and decided that the 25kts plus and two to three metre seas at Cape D’Aguilar were not for them or their boats.

With 258 entries, this was the biggest prospective fleet recorded for the 26nm circumnavigation.  With even Cyberport Gate getting a good 20-25kt blow and the relatively flat stretch along the south and south west of Hong Kong Island meant the entire fleet would likely be on record-setting paces for their respective classes.  Indeed, after the finish times were recorded and handicap times applied, it was pretty clear that most records fell from previous years.

Amongst the J/Teams, there were some excellent performances.  In the highly competitive IRC 2 Class, the J/111 MOJITO sailed by Simon Blore had a tremendous race, taking second overall and narrowly missing the overall win by a mere minute and a half!  For more Tommy Bahama Around Island Race sailing information

J/111 MOJITO Eclipses Hong Kong Offshore

(Hong Kong, China)- Recently, J/111's have been scoring significant performances in major offshore series around the world.  Michele & Simon Blore, sailing their J/111 #77 MOJITO has found herself in a tough division in Hong Kong's Nautica Typhoon Series 2013, a 9 race mix of windward leewards and islands races, competing in the top IRC group against Sam Chan's TP52, FreeFire; the GTS43 Elektra; two Mills 40 footers Ambush and (ex-Tiamat) Mandrake, and also the Ker 40 Signal 8. Also in the division are three A40's, two First 50's, a Marten 49, an MC38, the X41 Orient Xpress, a Sydney 38 and an all carbon Anteros 36. Here is the Blore's report:

"The top boats are all sailed by the core of Hong Kong's Commodore's Cup teams, plus the odd "Pro" as well, whereas Team MOJITO is still made up from the core of our J/92S team from 2008 to 2012, plus some new friends.

For Race 6 on Sunday, there were 21 IRC B boats on the sportily short start line, and undaunted by the size and speed of the kit all around her, Mojito judged it to perfection with a nose ahead on most of the fleet at the gun. In such a large fleet of bigger boats, getting out in front early was key, and quickly a lane opened up for a tack to port so we could work the right side upwind; a zone that seemed to be getting slightly better pressure all day.

The fleet quickly extended with the much faster TP, the Marten, and the "fast 40's" (Signal 8, Elektra, Ambush and Mandrake) all pulling away, but MOJITO just being able to stay in touch. In the 10-13 kts of breeze, MOJITO was on her North 3Di no 2 headsail, and downwind we were changing gears from 145TWA, and tack down, to playing the tack in the puffs and increasing the TWA to 160-165. It helped having one of the crew dedicated to trimming the tack line, in much the same way as playing the pole on a symmetric boat. The high power to weight ratio of the J/111 again proved to be a factor, as slight increases in wind pressure were quickly converted to more speed and depth downwind, and we are still learning how best to maximize this.

On the second upwind, by playing a few shifts and by tweaking in-haulers and trim some more, we lost little ground on the fleet ahead as we continued to work the west side uphill and downhill.

Downwind the J/111 was at times matching the angles of the pole boats, and gaining depth on the Ker 40; and by the end of lap 2 we rounded just a minute or 2 behind the fast 40's, so we knew we were in the mix for a top 3 place. Of the similarly rated boats such as the Anteros and the A40's, we had already opened up a winning margin of a few hundred metres by that time.

On the final lap upwind our pace still seemed to be good against the 6 boats ahead of us (all of whom gave us time), as we continued to cross tacks with the faster McGonaghy MC38.

Another good downwind leg consolidated our race as we sailed an eastward shift out on the now favored starboard gybe, and we finished believing we had a good shot at a podium place, in what is a very competitive and closely matched fleet of the 6 or 7 leading boats. Back at prize-giving we were delighted to hear that we had won the race, beating the TP52 by only 5 seconds on corrected; but a win's a win, and our new J/111 put down another marker in Hong Kong!" Sailing Photo Credits- Guy Nowell/ RHKYC.   For more J/111 one-design offshore speedster sailing information

Nations' Cup- Hong Kong

(Hong Kong, China)- 78 boats representing 23 nations were on the start line earlier today for the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club's most fun regatta, the Nation's Cup which is as much about the activities on land as it is about those on the water.  Race Officer Sofia Mascia started the fleet in an easterly wind ranging from 15 to 20kts from Hung Hom and sent them eastwards through the Lei Yue Mun gap and then on to Shek O. The race course saw boats then head to Cape Collinson where they rounded a mark (TCS4) before going back to Shek O and then it was a dash through the harbour to the finish line back at the Club.

The J/111 MOJITO- Simon Blore from England Team finished 7th in the Big Boat Division behind some TP52s and larger racing boats.  For more Royal Hong Kong YC Nations' Cup sailing information