SB20 Asia Pacific Championship - Day 1

SB20 Asia Pacific Championship day 1 © Howie Choo / www.howiephoto.com

As the sun rose over the beautiful ONEº15 Marina Sentosa Cove Singapore on Singapore's Sentosa island, the 23 SB20 crews sensed that Day 1 of the SB20 Asia Pacific Championships would be no ordinary day. As the fleet left the marina in a colourful display of spinnakers, many wondered where the usually trusty North East monsoon wind had gone and what would take its place. Sure enough the fleet was greeted with a postponement flag on the race track while the race committee heroically attempted to set a fair course in fickle North Westerly winds.

With the course finally set, the crews were eager to shake off the nerves and get underway. Too eager in fact and the race committee had to call all the boats back under general recall to try again. The second start was clean and the boats eased away from the start line in light breeze. The story of Race 1 became very clear very quickly. Any boat that was tempted in to explore the palm fringed beaches of the East Coast was caught out by a left hand shift. The boats on the right side of the powerful shift benefited mightily and the fleet splintered into two. After two laps of the track, Walababy (with crew Steven Manning, Alex Gough, Ryan Betonio, Nagisa Sakai fresh from Langkawi Regatta and Kings Cup) showed why there is nothing better than time on the water and finished first. Full time sailing professional, Alex Gough said "we had an awesome start and then picked the shift – it was easy after that". Last year's winners Glasgow Kiss (Nils Razmilovic) finished second and previous champion Xcellent (John Pollard) filled out the podium.

Race 2 saw more of the same. In light shifty North Westerlies, the boats that started at the pin end were able to make the most of freshening breeze further out to sea. Shameless, helmed by Thailand Platu National Champion, Scott Duncanson and crewed by Peter Gregg and Paul Burke led the way from the start and finished first. The students from Singapore Polytechnic sailing Bandit (Ryan Teo, Andre Chew, Nah Wei Keng, Lynette Kaiting) had clearly been studying boat speed and finished second. Xcellent continued its consistent performance and placed third.

By Race 3, the breeze had settled more and built to a pleasant 8 to 10 knots. All the crews enjoyed the more consistent breeze and semi-planing conditions. Team 3LB (Anthony Kiong, Stanley Chan and Colin Ng) showed why they are such a force in SEA sailing and had a great race to finish first. Tara (Nik Burfoot, Josh Grace, Mark Patterson) barged their way angrily around the bottom mark and were rewarded for their no holds barred approach to sailing with a fine second place. Meanwhile, Madame Zenda (David Witt, Kim Pascoe, Craig Malof) improved from mid-fleet placings in the lighter air to finish third.

As the sun set over the skyline, the boats started the long sail home. The calculators had to come out to work out where everyone had finished overall for the day. It seemed that consistency paid off in the tricky conditions and, unusually, of the three different boats that had won a race, none featured in the top 5 overall results for the day, having collected not only first places but also a swag of double digit results. Glasgow Kiss, flying under the radar has snuck to the top of the leader board (2, 4, 4) with Xcellent hot on their heels in second place for the date (3, 3, 5). Tara's second place in race three lifted them from mid fleet into third (7, 6, 2). The students from Singapore Polytechnic had a great day to finish fourth (9, 2, 6) and visitors from France on CN Salettes (Cohen Benjamin, Festino Jade, Tanguy Fournier, Elodie Cavernes) finished the day fifth (4,7,9). Nils Razmilovic, Singapore SB20 Class Chairman, was measured in his reaction to the day's results saying "it is only Day 1 and with a lot more races to be sailed, the only certainty is that anyone could still win".

Tonight, after beers on the dock, the social program will commence in earnest with the visiting crews head out to Singapore's iconic East Coast restaurants to enjoy a slap up seafood supper. There are stronger winds forecast for tomorrow and with any of the top ten boats capable of winning races, the stage is set for an exciting day of racing on Day 2.