Phuket Race Week 2010
Reprinted from the Tasmanian Yachtsman - Spring 2010
Well, I’m just about Thaied out, if you’ll pardon the pun. The Six Senses Phuket Race Week has finished, the silverware dished out and it’s time to hitch a ride on the next kerosene canary heading south. As some of you may remember, last year Vic and I entertained ourselves with some extreme cruising around the Tassie coast mid winter and deciding that once was enough, this year we took a different tack, googling ‘events of the world’ to see what sort of trouble we could get ourselves into in a slightly warmer climate. Phuket Race Week just happened to pop up and knowing how I love a boat race Thailand was destined to become our winter playground.
An email or two back and forth to Race Organiser Grenville Fordham resulted in the offer of a berth on his own yacht, an Andaman Cabriolet catamaran, which incidentally won last year’s regatta. The blurb indicated we should cop some wind and maybe a little rain along the way but Vic checked the forecast temperature for Thailand and 30 degrees looked significantly better than Hobart’s July alternative.
Arriving a couple of days prior to the series I jumped on board ‘Nina’ to do a warm up local regatta which gave us a chance to get a little team work happening and settle in to the boat. Co owner and skipper Bob duly inquired as to what I normally do on boats and volunteering my standard response of “Steer or navigate” he advised that as the steering spot was taken it looked like I’d be calling the shots. Oh well, a boat’s a boat I guess, cats can’t be too different, my naivety commented.
So I spent a couple of days on a learning curve that resembled looking up from the bottom of a black run ski slope as well as tuning the muscles up. Weight is critical on these things and as such five men was the full complement, so the tactician doubles as a trimmer and it’s been as while since I ground a winch in anger, I can tell you.
But in due course, race day came and apart from being a few seconds late for a couple of starts (I finally figured out that cats can stop dead when the wind softens and they take a little while to get going again if your angle is wrong) we were getting off the start line in clear air and around the course in reasonable form, scoring mid-fleet, but generally having a pretty good time of it and not too despondent given the light airs and ‘Nina’s’ relatively heavy weight compared to the newer and lighter hulls on the water this year.
The winds were consistently out of the west southwest with wind strength from nothing much to around fifteen knots so it was all fairly benign sailing around some pretty beautiful palm covered islands dotted with sandy beaches, with a fleet of 40 monohulls and multi-hulls competing and enough bite in the sun to leave you with a neck cooked to about medium rare by the end of the day if you forgot the sunscreen. The parties at the end of each race were the toast of Phuket and the Six Senses Evison Resort lived up to its reputation for putting on a great spread.
Bob had been struggling with a bug throughout the series and came final race day we were one man down, as he succumbed to a day in bed, so a mate of his was plucked off the beach and we were up to a crew of five again, but with a forecast of 20 plus knots and squalls gusting up to thirty five. Excellent!! No skipper and our first serious blow on the same day. Oh, well, that’s boat racing. When I asked Grenville who was steering, he simply smiled and gave me a look that said “You’re it Bourkey.”
Now sailing in the Andaman Sea is different in a number of ways from Tassie sailing. The first thing is that the quality of light is different, so reading the breeze on the water takes a little getting used to. You’d swear there was more wind on one side of the course only to get there and find it was just a trick of the light/shade. The other difference is that the squalls they get at this time of the year are quite hard to predict. The first of these bearing down on us out of the west heard me telling Grenville that back in Tassie, anything that black would see me diving back into the marina and doubling up on the mooring lines. Tucking in one and then two reefs before the squall hit ten minutes before the start was subsequently justified as thirty five to forty knots kicked through with due carnage around the race course, including but not restricted to the sports boat ‘Surf Patrol’ sliding towards us on its ear, spreaders in the water and probably more onboard fun and games than any one crew should have to enjoy.
Now knowing that these guys tend not to harness themselves in I thought we might just ramble over there and do a head count. Yep, as I suspected they were two down on deck with the errant crew floating a hundred yards away and in their ‘Surf Patrol’ uniforms looking more like a couple of surfies out for a swim than the yachties we knew they were. So we plucked them out of the Andaman Sea and in due course re-united them with the rest of their crew.
Fortunately the racing was postponed while the debris, including a dismasted cat sitting in the middle of the start line was cleared away and we eventually got back into the starting sequence, finally getting the boat race underway nearly an hour late. The first squall was not to be the last and with one eye over my shoulder, half way down the run I spotted a second black cloud looming large on the horizon. The yachties dilemma, how far down do we reef given that in the conditions on the day we were punching well above our weight position wise and I had no desire to flush our best performance thus far down the toilet coz of a bit of breeze. So, with the first reef tucked into the main and the kite doused just as the squall hit, and we rounded the bottom mark in third place and must have been pretty close to leading the fleet on time.
One of the features of these squalls is horizontal rain and lots of it, pretty much resulting in a white out, with the view from the boat being restricted to a few feet past the nose on your face. So with our bowman, Chris on the foredeck doing the best he could to keep an eye out for other traffic I ticked off the minutes on each tack to maintain an on course position taking us towards the top mark and figuring (hoping) the squall would pass by before we got there, as subsequently proved to be the case.
Finally, with half the fleet retired hurt and sailing in a twenty knot breeze we popped a reaching kite for the last, fast mile to the finish, with the one boat ahead that I knew we needed to knock off on time to win this race. However, with a suddenly skied whisker pole or whatever they call those things they tie spinnakers to on the front of cats, while doing the fifteen plus knots these boats are designed for, discretion overcame valour, down came the kite and we settled for a well earned second place in the race and upped our overall position to fifth for the regatta.
As a terrific personal gesture on prize night, Grenville donated Nina’s second place trophy to me with the offer of a berth in the Kings Cup or maybe the 2011 Six Senses Phuket Race Week. Thanks mate, that trophy will live in pride of place on a bulkhead on ‘Tubby’ and the story of Race Week will live on. As for the rest of the guys on board, Bob, Chris, our indefatigable mast man Graham and Bruce, our guy off the beach, all came together on the day to make for a thoroughly enjoyable series that I won’t forget in a hurry. As for when we’ll be back in this neck of the woods, I guess we’ll have to see what comes up on Google when Tassie starts getting chilly again. But, it’s a great place to go sailing and I’ll certainly be back again sometime soon.
And as much as all as I am a dyed in the wool monohull yachtie, the Andaman Cabriolet is a great boat, with plenty of feel on the helm and an impressive build quality. Carrying a price tag of around $300,000 it’s also affordable. I think they will be coming to Oz soon.
But before I go I have to tell you that Vic and I did stumble across something a little more dangerous than boat racing in Thai squalls. We decided to take in some of the native night life, somehow ending up in the front stalls of the infamous ‘Simon’s Lady Boy Cabaret’. It’s a sort of boys will be girls type of thing that sounded and subsequently turned out to be pretty amusing. But if you do go and see the show I recommend you don’t sit too close to the front of the theatre. You might get mauled by a ‘lady boy’ (See the photo below.)
So here I sit in a hotel room in Kata Beach on my lonesome. Vic has had to scoot back to Oz to sort out a few things and last night some clown down the hall decided to let everyone know he was home around 3 am by repeatedly slamming his door. The snorkelling trip I planned to Phi Phi Island has been cancelled due to more storms and to top it off it’s a local holy day so the bars are all shut. Sheesh! However, Thailand has been a delight, a country full of smiles, exotic aromas, fabulous food, terrific sailing and a great place to hang out for a while.
But Oz beckons and I’m heading to Sydney for the boat show today to stoke up a few more dreams and then a week in Tassie, with hopefully enough time to get around to Fortescue on ‘Tubby’, to sit quietly and recharge the batteries, before we head back to Port Hedland to once more do the dance of the iron ore elephants.
See you all soon,
Bourkey
PS – The Lucky Country
I’m tapping this out from my hospital bed in Sydney’s Prince of Wales Hospital. I collected a case of food poisoning with complications on my way through Bangkok airport which resulted in 6 of the most miserable hours I’ve ever spent on a plane. The Mascot Airport Fire Brigade, who apparently handle all such airport emergencies, accompanied by a quarantine guy, boarded the plane when we landed in Sydney before anyone was allowed to leave and whisked me off to an ambulance and then to hospital in less time than it takes to shake out a reef.
So here I sit, 4 days later, with a saline/antibiotic drip in my arm just about rehydrated and getting over the agony I nursed through those seemingly endless hours waiting for the drugs to weave their magic.
The thing is this. Every single person that was involved, from the guy that gave up his seat on the plane so I could lie down, the Thai Air stewards, even the passenger who wished me well as they wheeled me off the plane instead of complaining about being held up, the firies, the ambos and the Prince of Wales hospital staff, who included a myriad of nationalities it would take me too long to list, all had one common thread, a genuine sense of good will towards a guy who was suffering.
And the professionals involved have been just amazing. I managed to squeak out short message to Vic over the phone to the effect that I was in safe hands before disappearing into oblivion for a few days, sleeping the sleep of the dead, my only subconscious thought being how lucky I was to be back in Oz, where this level of care is sometimes wrongly taken as a given. Thanks guys, you’re all champions. jb
An email or two back and forth to Race Organiser Grenville Fordham resulted in the offer of a berth on his own yacht, an Andaman Cabriolet catamaran, which incidentally won last year’s regatta. The blurb indicated we should cop some wind and maybe a little rain along the way but Vic checked the forecast temperature for Thailand and 30 degrees looked significantly better than Hobart’s July alternative.
Arriving a couple of days prior to the series I jumped on board ‘Nina’ to do a warm up local regatta which gave us a chance to get a little team work happening and settle in to the boat. Co owner and skipper Bob duly inquired as to what I normally do on boats and volunteering my standard response of “Steer or navigate” he advised that as the steering spot was taken it looked like I’d be calling the shots. Oh well, a boat’s a boat I guess, cats can’t be too different, my naivety commented.
So I spent a couple of days on a learning curve that resembled looking up from the bottom of a black run ski slope as well as tuning the muscles up. Weight is critical on these things and as such five men was the full complement, so the tactician doubles as a trimmer and it’s been as while since I ground a winch in anger, I can tell you.
But in due course, race day came and apart from being a few seconds late for a couple of starts (I finally figured out that cats can stop dead when the wind softens and they take a little while to get going again if your angle is wrong) we were getting off the start line in clear air and around the course in reasonable form, scoring mid-fleet, but generally having a pretty good time of it and not too despondent given the light airs and ‘Nina’s’ relatively heavy weight compared to the newer and lighter hulls on the water this year.
The winds were consistently out of the west southwest with wind strength from nothing much to around fifteen knots so it was all fairly benign sailing around some pretty beautiful palm covered islands dotted with sandy beaches, with a fleet of 40 monohulls and multi-hulls competing and enough bite in the sun to leave you with a neck cooked to about medium rare by the end of the day if you forgot the sunscreen. The parties at the end of each race were the toast of Phuket and the Six Senses Evison Resort lived up to its reputation for putting on a great spread.
Bob had been struggling with a bug throughout the series and came final race day we were one man down, as he succumbed to a day in bed, so a mate of his was plucked off the beach and we were up to a crew of five again, but with a forecast of 20 plus knots and squalls gusting up to thirty five. Excellent!! No skipper and our first serious blow on the same day. Oh, well, that’s boat racing. When I asked Grenville who was steering, he simply smiled and gave me a look that said “You’re it Bourkey.”
Now sailing in the Andaman Sea is different in a number of ways from Tassie sailing. The first thing is that the quality of light is different, so reading the breeze on the water takes a little getting used to. You’d swear there was more wind on one side of the course only to get there and find it was just a trick of the light/shade. The other difference is that the squalls they get at this time of the year are quite hard to predict. The first of these bearing down on us out of the west heard me telling Grenville that back in Tassie, anything that black would see me diving back into the marina and doubling up on the mooring lines. Tucking in one and then two reefs before the squall hit ten minutes before the start was subsequently justified as thirty five to forty knots kicked through with due carnage around the race course, including but not restricted to the sports boat ‘Surf Patrol’ sliding towards us on its ear, spreaders in the water and probably more onboard fun and games than any one crew should have to enjoy.
Now knowing that these guys tend not to harness themselves in I thought we might just ramble over there and do a head count. Yep, as I suspected they were two down on deck with the errant crew floating a hundred yards away and in their ‘Surf Patrol’ uniforms looking more like a couple of surfies out for a swim than the yachties we knew they were. So we plucked them out of the Andaman Sea and in due course re-united them with the rest of their crew.
Fortunately the racing was postponed while the debris, including a dismasted cat sitting in the middle of the start line was cleared away and we eventually got back into the starting sequence, finally getting the boat race underway nearly an hour late. The first squall was not to be the last and with one eye over my shoulder, half way down the run I spotted a second black cloud looming large on the horizon. The yachties dilemma, how far down do we reef given that in the conditions on the day we were punching well above our weight position wise and I had no desire to flush our best performance thus far down the toilet coz of a bit of breeze. So, with the first reef tucked into the main and the kite doused just as the squall hit, and we rounded the bottom mark in third place and must have been pretty close to leading the fleet on time.
One of the features of these squalls is horizontal rain and lots of it, pretty much resulting in a white out, with the view from the boat being restricted to a few feet past the nose on your face. So with our bowman, Chris on the foredeck doing the best he could to keep an eye out for other traffic I ticked off the minutes on each tack to maintain an on course position taking us towards the top mark and figuring (hoping) the squall would pass by before we got there, as subsequently proved to be the case.
Finally, with half the fleet retired hurt and sailing in a twenty knot breeze we popped a reaching kite for the last, fast mile to the finish, with the one boat ahead that I knew we needed to knock off on time to win this race. However, with a suddenly skied whisker pole or whatever they call those things they tie spinnakers to on the front of cats, while doing the fifteen plus knots these boats are designed for, discretion overcame valour, down came the kite and we settled for a well earned second place in the race and upped our overall position to fifth for the regatta.
As a terrific personal gesture on prize night, Grenville donated Nina’s second place trophy to me with the offer of a berth in the Kings Cup or maybe the 2011 Six Senses Phuket Race Week. Thanks mate, that trophy will live in pride of place on a bulkhead on ‘Tubby’ and the story of Race Week will live on. As for the rest of the guys on board, Bob, Chris, our indefatigable mast man Graham and Bruce, our guy off the beach, all came together on the day to make for a thoroughly enjoyable series that I won’t forget in a hurry. As for when we’ll be back in this neck of the woods, I guess we’ll have to see what comes up on Google when Tassie starts getting chilly again. But, it’s a great place to go sailing and I’ll certainly be back again sometime soon.
And as much as all as I am a dyed in the wool monohull yachtie, the Andaman Cabriolet is a great boat, with plenty of feel on the helm and an impressive build quality. Carrying a price tag of around $300,000 it’s also affordable. I think they will be coming to Oz soon.
But before I go I have to tell you that Vic and I did stumble across something a little more dangerous than boat racing in Thai squalls. We decided to take in some of the native night life, somehow ending up in the front stalls of the infamous ‘Simon’s Lady Boy Cabaret’. It’s a sort of boys will be girls type of thing that sounded and subsequently turned out to be pretty amusing. But if you do go and see the show I recommend you don’t sit too close to the front of the theatre. You might get mauled by a ‘lady boy’ (See the photo below.)
So here I sit in a hotel room in Kata Beach on my lonesome. Vic has had to scoot back to Oz to sort out a few things and last night some clown down the hall decided to let everyone know he was home around 3 am by repeatedly slamming his door. The snorkelling trip I planned to Phi Phi Island has been cancelled due to more storms and to top it off it’s a local holy day so the bars are all shut. Sheesh! However, Thailand has been a delight, a country full of smiles, exotic aromas, fabulous food, terrific sailing and a great place to hang out for a while.
But Oz beckons and I’m heading to Sydney for the boat show today to stoke up a few more dreams and then a week in Tassie, with hopefully enough time to get around to Fortescue on ‘Tubby’, to sit quietly and recharge the batteries, before we head back to Port Hedland to once more do the dance of the iron ore elephants.
See you all soon,
Bourkey
PS – The Lucky Country
I’m tapping this out from my hospital bed in Sydney’s Prince of Wales Hospital. I collected a case of food poisoning with complications on my way through Bangkok airport which resulted in 6 of the most miserable hours I’ve ever spent on a plane. The Mascot Airport Fire Brigade, who apparently handle all such airport emergencies, accompanied by a quarantine guy, boarded the plane when we landed in Sydney before anyone was allowed to leave and whisked me off to an ambulance and then to hospital in less time than it takes to shake out a reef.
So here I sit, 4 days later, with a saline/antibiotic drip in my arm just about rehydrated and getting over the agony I nursed through those seemingly endless hours waiting for the drugs to weave their magic.
The thing is this. Every single person that was involved, from the guy that gave up his seat on the plane so I could lie down, the Thai Air stewards, even the passenger who wished me well as they wheeled me off the plane instead of complaining about being held up, the firies, the ambos and the Prince of Wales hospital staff, who included a myriad of nationalities it would take me too long to list, all had one common thread, a genuine sense of good will towards a guy who was suffering.
And the professionals involved have been just amazing. I managed to squeak out short message to Vic over the phone to the effect that I was in safe hands before disappearing into oblivion for a few days, sleeping the sleep of the dead, my only subconscious thought being how lucky I was to be back in Oz, where this level of care is sometimes wrongly taken as a given. Thanks guys, you’re all champions. jb
