HKRNVR Memorial Vase RHKYC Team Agiplast

We had a regatta! The first act of the Liberty Bitcoin Cup took place from 2 to 12 March in Gaeta, Italy where eight teams competed for one spot in the Liberty Bitcoin Cup final to be held right here at Middle Island in January 2022.

RHKYC Team Agiplast

WORDS: CALUM GREGOR | IMAGES: #69FMEDIA @MARTA ROVATTI STUDIHRAD PHOTOGRAPHER

he event was split into a qualifying series and a finals series. Of the eight participating teams only six would make it into the finals series, putting significantly greater pressure on all teams to perform in the knockout rounds of the event in a unique format that rewards consistent but strong performances. and the EU (a mix of the Netherlands and Italy). Out of these teams there were three sailors who have qualified for the Tokyo Olympics, and various sailors that are in the hunt for the final qualifying spots up for grabs later in the month. On top of this there were also world and European champions and medallists from various youth classes to create and incredibly strong fleet where small mistakes would be punished heavily, especially on the tightly fought start lines.

Races took place on the 69F, the one-design foiling monohull many of you will have seen at the Club over the past few months as we trained in the lead up to the event. The boats are very similar to the current America’s Cup boats with similar sail and foil setups, however our foils need to be lifted and dropped by

our self-professed ‘tanks’ Nicolai Jacobsen and Samy Morton. Mainsheet trim is done by hand rather than with an iPad and is trimmed by Maria Cantero. Last but not least, Jib and steering is done by me! All in all, despite sailing in the high teens upwind and mid-twenties downwind, it is still sailing and all the basics still apply. If you start well, sail in the right direction and trim the sails well to keep the boat going fast, you win races.

The team arrived early to the event in order to get our boat set up for training and do some tuning and races with our competitors. The team rigged the boat in a very cold 0 to 3C with sleet falling at the host club and snow on the nearby mountains – add to that 35 to 40kts of wind! We set out to achieve as much as we could before the event in terms of improvement and therefore remained extremely structured with our training programme and setting daily goals which we would stay out until we had achieved them. The rate of improvement is so much higher when you have teams to train with, so we worked closely with another team, Young Azzurra, for much of our time there which benefited both of us greatly. Overall, we made significant improvements in our sailing and racing and we were really pleased with how we were continually improving going into the event – it was going to be crucial to keep this going, particularly with how fast the Dutch were looking.

Going into the qualifying series we were still aiming for constant improvement and being extremely critical on all roles in the boat and how we could improve them. The series was set up so that first place qualified directly to the finals series whilst second place got to skip the quarter finals and proceed directly into the semis. We sailed consistently throughout the qualifying series and managed to come away with 2nd overall by winning the last race and Young Azzurra coming 4th. This meant we got a free pass directly into the semi-finals.

The weather forecast for the semi-finals and final series looked particularly bad in terms of wind, so we had to push hard to get races. As soon as the Quarters finished, we went straight into the semis with two races on the same day. The course was tricky with rain

clouds everywhere and calling pressure was going to be tough. Fortunately, we got a good start in race one was able to extend giving us a comfortable wind and great confidence coming into race two. Another reasonable start saw us neck and neck with Young Azzurra at mark one. We rolled them on the downwind and came into new pressure which was 40 degrees left of centre. The full extent of this shift was not quite visible until we gybed on what we thought was the layline.

One of the perks of foiling boats is their unique ability to change their layline by 30 degrees due to a 2kt change in wind speed. After some slightly embarrassing moments we rounded the bottom mark simultaneously with Spain and Italy. After a displacement upwind in shifty conditions we came away with a 2nd which we were content with. The next day saw absolutely no wind all day. We went out to try and get a race away however were unable to. This meant we won the semi-finals giving us great confidence going into the final series! In the words of the Chicago bulls, it was now GAME TIME!

The first day of finals series brought with it the prospect of constant upwind foiling, something which had been proving illusive in the days before. Our first two races left much to be desired with questionable starting and difficulty in upwind speed. We reset well knowing how tricky the shifty offshore conditions were and that with such a highquality fleet the results could turn not their head in a second. We finished the day strongly with a second and a first with the other leading teams having some higher points scoring races. This put us back in the fight and left us sitting in 2nd overall going into day two.

Day two brought a light sea breeze which filled in nicely throughout the day to be the strongest day of racing yet. Unfortunately, the strong winds and short chop highlighted some weaknesses in our moding both upwind and downwind. As it goes in sailing, on some days other teams sail better than you and that is what happened on day two with some really strong performances from Young Azzurra and Dutch Sail, the latter of which won all the races that day. We were happy to finish the day off strong being right in the mix with both of them coming away with a third in the race. Despite the results of the day leaving much to be desired, we felt we came away from it having improved greatly in our sailing in these conditions and, after a long and frank

Our journey to a more circular economy

Agiplast is specialized in polymer compounding and regeneration since 1994. We recycle various materials to be used for injection (e.g. soccer outsoles, fi ttings) or extrusion (e.g. cables and tubing) applications globally. We have many long term partnerships in the industry of waste collection.

Our purpose for sustainable material goes to all corners of the company, from only using green energy to always ensuring the most effi cient way for material to travel to and from us.

We are developing our educational role on materials and try to use our infl uence to guide the sustainable design of products. An example of this is colorways: Black is the new Green is a mantra we elaborate over and over again.

When blending various colors of scrap you will always end up with black when mixing all colors together. In a world where we need to recycle more, we need to accept the black colored sneaker, tube and yarn in order to accommodate to recycled materials more.

Our feeding brand of regenerated Polyamides is , which stands for Polyamides is , which stands for Regenerated Global as New. Our support for the RHKYC Team Agiplast on their amazing foiling boat aligns with our corporate direction. Foiling has come as a revolution in sailing as sustainability has risen as a revolution in our consuming society. We are so very proud to have this team of young professional sailors and supporting parties involved. Together we have faced and overcome many challenges. The youngsters have promptly adapted to this new technique needed to performance foiling. We hope to help this generation to adapt to a more sustainable lifestyle.

Stay tuned to our channels for all latest information on the competitions ahead.

debriefing, are confident we have solutions to our problems and will only come back stronger and bring the fight to the other teams. We were angry having lost our second place overall and the whole team was raring to go the next day and extremely determined to catch the Italians. Unfortunately, the wind did not play ball on the final day and, despite the best efforts of the race committee, we didn’t get any races in.

This left us third overall, a position I find myself finishing in more regularly than I would like to! As a team, we feel we gave 100% in all of the events and are therefore really proud to come away with this result as it reflects the hard work we have put in over the past 10 months. We would also like to think it shows the world that Hong Kong can compete at some of the highest levels in sailing and more importantly, compete well. We hope to see the Club’s youth squad, the Sharks, achieving even better results in youth classes and maybe even further in the future!

Last but not least, we as the sailing team would like to take particular note of a few certain members who have gone above and beyond with the amount of work they have put in to making sure an event happened after the disappointing cancellation of the Youth America’s Cup. These are Rune Jacobsen, Lucy Sutro and Denis Martinet. Their unwavering support for the campaign has allowed us to create something special in what everyone can agree to be a less than ideal global situation.

We have also been fortunate enough to receive world class coaching from one of the best foiling coaches in the world, Chris Rashley. Chris moved across the world and devoted 10 months of his life to this campaign and we as a team are fortunate enough not only to have been able to learn from his vast depth of experience every day but make a friend for life, thank you Chris.

Another massive thank you needs to go out to the Royal Hong Yacht Yacht Club and our fantastic sponsors, Max Dubreuil and Rosien Grasveld at Agiplast. Without either of these entities none of this would have been possible, for this we are extremely grateful and hope to provide as much return as possible. Finally, a big shout out to the Liberty Bitcoin Fund and in particular, Martin Baumann, we will be coming to the next event stronger than ever and can’t wait to get racing for the coin in Hong Kong for the Liberty Bitcoin Cup finals and the hotly contested prize of one bitcoin, we’re looking forwards to seeing where the price will be by then. See you all there in January!

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