15th Royal Langkawi International Regatta - Day 1

Royal Langkawi International Regatta day 1 © Andy Leong Photography

The 15th Royal Langkawi International Regatta (RLIR) 2017 got off this morning with 30 boats split into eight classes. Nine of the participating boats are newcomers and nine are locally-owned boats.

The day started with calm and sunny weather after heavy rains during the previous days. Although there was no wind at 8.00 am the wind picked up at 3 knots by 9.20 am and the first warning signal started the race at 9.30 am. Wind peaked with 6 knots at 1.30pm. The Racing Day 1 finished at about 3pm with 2 races in Kuah Harbour for most classes except for the Club and White Sail class who did one race only.

THA72, one of the new-comers skippered by Don Whitcraft, took top honours ahead of Emagine and Black Bazza, another new-comer in the Racing class.

Mata Hari skippered by Vincent Chan, a regular regatta participant and last year's winner in the IRC1 class, topped the table again followed by Insanity and PhPlus.

"It was a challenging day with such light wind. We thought we would have no race today, but luckily ended up with two races. It was a good start of the regatta" said Vincent Chan who won both races today.

In the Multihull class Tantrum Too secured the first place in both races ahead of Gerhard Pils' Fetz Ma. Both boats are newcomers this year. Fetz Ma is the smallest boat in the regatta with 2 crew members only. "And our crew is a gender mix and generation mix" Gerhard pointed out. "We were lucky we had enough wind to race with blue skies after all the rain in recent days and hope for more wind in the coming days."

"The first day of the regatta was better than expected, at least we had no rain and a light breeze. We are delighted to see nine newcomers and hope they will all be happy with the race and come back every year. We would like to see Langkawi as a future nautical tourist destination" said Tayfun Koksal, managing director of the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club.

This popular Royal Langkawi International Regatta is the first international event on the annual Malaysian Tourism Calendar. It is hosted by the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club for the first time in the newly built Fishermen's Wharf, a new landmark in Langkawi populated with a variety of restaurants, shops, entertainment and a yacht club hotel with 44 rooms.

Teams will compete for the Prime Minister's Challenge Trophy - for Racing Class yachts; the Commodore's Challenge Cup - for participants of club-registered cruisers; the LADA-IRC Challenge Trophy - for participants in the IRC 1 Class; RLIR IRC2 Class Challenge Trophy - for participants in the IRC2 Class; the Langkawi Sports Trophy - for participants in the Sports Boat Class and the Malaysian Multihull Challenge Cup - for participants in the Multihull category.

The Tunku Abdullah Sportsmanship Award will be presented to the best team for its competitiveness, fair racing and comradeship, on water and land, in memory of the late Founding Chairman and the first Commodore of the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club (RLYC), Almarhum Tunku Tan Sri Abdullah Tuanku Abdul Rahman.

RLIR 2017 is grateful for the continued support of the Ministry of Tourism and Culture Malaysia and Tourism Malaysia, Ministry of Youth & Sports Malaysia and the Langkawi Development Authority (LADA), as well as its commercial sponsors such as Volvo Car Malaysia Sdn Bhd, ECK Development Sdn Bhd, ETIKA Sdn Bhd (formerly known as Permanis Sandilands Sdn Bhd) and supporters.

Media Partners are SEA Yachting, IMAGE asia, HOMME and TRAXXfm RTM.

www.langkawiregatta.com/rlir2017