Sun Hung Kai & Co Around the Island Race

WORDS: NIKKI CLARINGBOLD AND VIVIAN NGAN | IMAGES: GUY NOWELL | VIVIAN NGAN | 小四哥

Hong Kong’s biggest annual celebration of sail, Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club’s Sun Hung Kai & Co. Around the Island Race, a 26nm circumnavigation of Hong Kong Island, took place on Sunday 20 November with an impressive line up of 224 boats from 14 classes, including seven one-design classes, Sportsboats, HKPN, IRC, dinghies, beach catamarans and two trimarans who stole the show with their stunning display of speed this year - both crossing the finishing line in first and second place.

It took two start lines set off Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club's Kellett Island Clubhouse and 24 consecutive starts to get the fleet away. SHK Scallywag FUKU Orma 60 Trimaran was the last starter at 1110hrs, 10 minutes behind its smaller rival, the Nigel Irens 40 trimaran, Carbon 3, while the smallest boat competing in the race, the singlehanded RS Aero 7 skippered by Stefan Lecher headed off at 0840hrs. The youngest participant of the race was 2.5 years old Danielle Law, who took part in her first Around the Island Race on board Ding Dong with her 5 year old brother Sean and father Dominic.

The day started in 8 to 10kts of north-easterly breeze off the start line. The fleet made their way up the island side of the Hong Kong Harbour, avoiding exclusion zones for Hong Kong’s busy marine traffic and then made their way seamlessly out through the Lei Yue Mun Gap. Kites were hoisted out of the Gap, where the fleet compressed as the wind lightened off to an easterly breeze of around 6kts.

By Shek O and the approaches to Cape D’Aguilar, Nim Ye’s J92s Delight, was in the lead with the breeze starting to pick up again to 10kts. However, Rune Jacobsen’s J/80 Jammin soon took over the lead passing through the Stanley Gate at 1240hrs with the 29ers right behind them. In the meantime, things were also hotting up at the back of the fleet as SHK Scallywag FUKU powered up and started working her way through the armada of yachts, going on to the lead the fleet through the Cyberport Gate a mere nine minutes later and the Sandy Bay Club mark 4 minutes later at 1253hrs.

With the fleet under kite from Cape D’ Aguilar and experiencing consistent conditions, Race Officer David Norton confirmed the race would make the full circumnavigation with the finish off Kellett Island. Spared the typical Cyberport park-up, the majority of the fleet had converged on Green Island by 1500hrs before they started the last challenging section of the course – negotiating the tricky beat back up through the harbour to the finish.

In what was to be a quick race for all, David Witt’s SHK Scallywayg FUKU Orma 60 Trimaran took the fasted elapsed time of 2h 25m 21s, just short of the race record of 2h 13m 11s established by Aberdeen Extreme 40 in 2013. Witt said after the race, the team had only sailed one race in the last three years and it was a fitting way to reignite the SHK Scallywag sailing team by joining the Race, “it was the teams first time in the Sun Hung Kai & Co. Around the Island Race and we loved it. Team owner and club member Seng Huang Lee helmed the tri throughout the 26nm race. In missing the the record, he was disappointed but we look forward to trying again next year.” Witt added the SHK Scallywag team look forward to being back next year.

The Nigel Irens Tri 40 trimaran, Carbon 3 crossed the finishing line, 22 mins after SHK Scallywag FUKU Orma 60. Carbon 3 going on to lift the HKPN overall division trophy of the day, followed by Bridget Chan’s Ker 11.3 Minnie the Moocher and Raymond Yip’s Beneteau First 44.7 Harpseal taking 3rd place in the divsion.

Skipper of Carbon 3, Niccolo Manno was pleased to have had another multihull out on the course, “We are obviously very happy about the

win, in particular since we had great competition with the Orma 60 in town this year, and to come second over the line is a great result too. On the back of a line honours win two years ago, we feel good – we just messed up the 2 last tacks in front of the finishing line and all the spectators, ha!”

He added the team’s great consistency and boat handling skills contributed to their win this year. “The crew did an amazing job with all the tacks up the harbour and so many gybes in the Lamma channel. We sailed our race, and tried to keep our average speeds high throughout the race.”

The big winners of the day were Noel Chan’s TP52 Rampage88, followed by another TP52 Phoenix owned by Robert Wiest/Victor Ku and David Ho and Patrick Pender’s VX One Serendipity who wrapped up the ATI overall postions.

Owner of Rampage88, Noel Chan, was delighted by the teams performance over the sailing season, having taken 1st place in Autumn Regatta, 2nd place in China Coast Regatta – a close one point behind Alpha+ and then 1st place overall in Sung Hung Kai & Co. Around the Island Race in their division.

“Sailing on a TP52 is very physical and the skill set is very demanding. We have a strong team mixing local and expat sailors. We are grateful to have had Mathew Humphries helping us over the past three years on a coaching program.”

“We deliberately put 13 crew on board for the race to cover the work

Carbon 3 HKPN Division Overall Winner

PhyloongII Dragon Class Winner

Serendipity Sportsboat Class Winner Rampage88 ATI Division Overall Winner

SHK Scallywag FUKU Orma 60 Line Honours

usually done by 15 sailors to suit the lighter conditions. This year we were lucky to have the perfect wind condition, there were no wind hole in Cyberport this year, therefore we could overtake nearly all the boats who started before us.”

At the smaller end of the fleet, Emily Polson helming her 29er Diana, took the impressive double of the 29er division trophy and the Ladies Govida prize, for first ladies helm. Commenting after the race that “It was really fun and challenging and it was so great to be a part of an event of this size and racing against some amazing boats. It was so good to have six 29ers on the water as well.”

Race Officer David Norton was satisfied with the steady conditions, “Unlike the ’feast and famine’ conditions that we see most years, the 2022 Around the Island Race had a consistent 8–12kts around the whole course, the only real soft spot was around the Green Island mark. Great sailing conditions along the Lamma channel! The outgoing tide helped most of the fleet through Lei Yue Mun, but the payback was a strong adverse current in the western harbour on the 3.5 mile beat back from Green Island mark to the finish.

Well done to the 207 boats that completed the race and we must thank the 50 plus volunteers that made this event happen. Thanks also to Sun Hung Kai & Co. for their sponsorship of the event and for bringing the Orma 60 all the way to Hong Kong for the race.”

The Around the Island Race has been a huge success and we must say a huge thank you to our sponsors and partners. Sun Hung Kai & Co., who continue to be a valued and engaged title sponsor of the event. Thanks also goes to supporting sponsors St James’s Place, Timothy Oulton and Maui Jim for their steadfast support and Peroni – partner of the event, who helped with getting the post-race celebration into full swing. Their support has allowed our events to grow exceptionaly each year and we look forward to more great events with them in future.

Full Power Flying15 Class winner Impala 1 Impala Class Winner

Solstice Pandora Class Winner Jammin J/80 Class Winner

Big Car Hobie 16 Class Winner Miss Piggy Ruffian Class Winner Diana 29er Class Winner

King of the Pin Etchells Class Winner

Sun Hung Kai & Co., Around the Island Race requires an enormous pool of volunteers without whom it could not take place – the Club would like to thank the race management team of Race Officer David Norton and ARO Inge Strompf-Jepsen with Cathy Delany, Howie Suen and Victor Yung, Cyberport Gate RO Elberti Uiterwaal-Postma with Carol Wu, Jocosa Tse, Natalie Sukhanova and Nils Hesse, Stanley Gate RO Jennifer Li with Clarice Lam, Rita Yu and Tina Over, Inner Line RO Lindsay Lyons with her shore team Gina Littlefair, Rob Littlefair and Vicky Pang.

The safety team were kept busy and a huge thank you goes out to Safety Officer Barry Truhol with Andy Chong, Andy Wong, Arick Chan, Baden Wong, Calle Krokstäde, Christopher Nowell, Ernest Wong, Floria Wun, Gigi Shui, Jacqueline Truhol, Jonathan Bluhdorn, Katie Krokstäde, Niclas Rydin, Oscar Hemberg, Paul Oen, Robert Humann, Robert Rogers, Stephen Cheung, Steve Wordsworth, Sunny Yip, Tommy Chan, Tony Cheung, Tony Price and Victor Tsien.

The last word: Niccolo Manno, skipper of Carbon 3 sums the day up, “Go race next year, this is the best race in Hong Kong, the colours of all the spinakers downwind, the scenery, the atmosphere, it’s just a great event every year.”

See you all next year!