One Global Lipton Trophy

WORDS: VIVIAN NGAN IMAGES: GUY NOWELL | VIVIAN NGAN

The second constituent event of the Top Dog Trophy Series 2022-2023, the One Global Lipton Trophy, took place on Saturday 26 November 2022 with an average of 5kts of easterly wind being bestowed upon Victoria Harbour.

he regular pursuit Race Officer team of Gareth and Di Williams opted for a Hung Hom start and elected to set the fleet to sail 2.5 loops between Hung Hom and Tai Koo Shing. Pursuit races work on each boat or class of boats being given a different start time based on their handicap, which in a perfect race would result in all boats finishing at around the same target time of 1630hrs.

Luckily the rain stopped before racing got underway. The Pandoras were the first to start at 1400hrs and the last boat to start was TP52 Phoenix at 1514hrs. A total of 62 boats started the race at staggered start times set according to their RHKATI ratings.

As the day progressed, the wind built up to an occasional 9kts with blue sky briefly showing up at the end of the day. RO Gareth Williams shortened the course at Tai Koo Shing; exceptionally close to the target finish time of 16h30m00s, only 52 seconds in it.

Congratulations to Pandora Windfall who held off the faster classes until the final gun, crossing the finishing line at 16h30m52s with their sailors jumping up and down with joy. Impala 1 crossed in 2nd place just 37 seconds behind and Impala Gnu took 3rd place. It was The One Global Lipton Trophy was the second of four events that make up the Top Dog Trophy Series 2022-2023. The first event was Sun Hung Kai & Co. Around the Island Race held on 20 November and the next two pursuit races will be the One Global HKRNVR Memorial Vase (7 January 2023) and the One Global Tomes Cup (29 April 2023).

We would like to extend a huge thank you to long-time Title Sponsor One Global for their continued support of the Lipton Trophy. They, along with partner Peroni, continue to be valued sponsors of our event and we look forward to the rest of the swweries with them on board. The club would also like to thank the fabulous volunteers who ran racing on the day, Race Officer Gareth Williams and ARO Sean Taylor and Victor Tsien and their capable team of assistants: Cynthia Yim, Dawn Allen, Di Williams, Jacky Lam, Jimmy Pon, Lindsay Lyons, Ronald Lau, Victor Yung, Victoria Elegant and the safety team of Brett Rohsheim and Niclas Rydin.