Guest Posted May 11, 2012 Share Posted May 11, 2012 Recently we had 3 Shaw 650s racing against a T650, Phuket 8 and the DSS equiped Welbourne 25 up here in sunny Thailand for Top of the Gulf Regatta; as the POrnstar is originally a Kiwi boat, thought would share and show how she's doing these days. Racing was under the SMS measurement rule. The rest of the regatta fleet included the Soto 30 (which is maybe an interesting boat for NZ), 11 hot 40 footers, Seacart 26 and a host of multis, Platus and assorted other IRC clunkers, and 100+ dinghies. Good breeze on the first day, with 20 gusting 25, and in that breeze the Shaws are pretty unbeatable; the guys from Australia on Crime Scene who own Moneyshot were first on line and handicap, which they matched on day 2 and 3, winning all races on corrected. We did ok on the pornstar, although a crew change and no practice at all for 3 months due to health issues made us drop a bit of time on days 1 and 3; day 2 we were up to speed but the other team were too good for us. The welbourne is an interesting boat; they would have been quicker probably without the foil on the first day (a Shaw should not be quicker and lower than that boat) and the claimed 30-40% advantage I heard the day before racing started from every expert (the crew and owner of the boat were great guys who made no comment) might be there, but not from what we saw in the short Pattaya chop conditions on the first couple of days; day 3 they started to get quicker, but were still only maybe 10% quicker than the Shaws, and the 3 of us were battling eachother around the marks and so on. Good times, and it was a pity not to see Booboo and Ffreefire sailing, but the 52s seem to be superceded up here by the 40 footers with Archambault, King, Summit, GTS, GP42, Swan 42, etc all here racing Hifi which is the only 52 racing this year (Hifi) and they actually won it. Link to post Share on other sites
mattyg 0 Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 Awesome work Kip, Link to post Share on other sites
Adrianp 120 Posted May 14, 2012 Share Posted May 14, 2012 Sounds like a fun regatta in some nice warm waters! Link to post Share on other sites
B00B00 310 Posted May 14, 2012 Share Posted May 14, 2012 Hey Kip, yup the Ffreefire program doesn't ever do that regatta which is a bummer as I would like to come up for it one day. I thought it was more of a small boat regatta but Prydie always seems to be there. Heading to Koh Samui next week though so may see you there? Taking 2 other Kiwis up this time which should be good. Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Posted May 14, 2012 Share Posted May 14, 2012 Thanks Mattyg Booboo sadly not doing Samui this year due to work and a bit of a SNAFU by the organisers who said it would be run under IRC, so the other Shaws didn't want to go down....they backed down now that they understand the SMS rule is also a measurement based rule but a bit late. Brace brace brace will be there though, that's a very impressive piece of kit. TOG used to be a dinghy regatta mostly, but that has swung now, I would say it is 60+ keelboats & ocean multis now, so a lot bigger than Samui or Raceweek, and has a much smaller charter fleet so its almost on par with Kings Cup which is around 100. There were 12 boats or maybe 13 in IRC 1, almost all in the 40-42 length; Hifi was the only 52, but last year there were Evolution Sails, Team Premier and Hifi, so it goes in cycles a bit. Definitely worth talking to Sam about it, as the regatta is probably on average the one with most breeze usually in Thailand (we had 20+ on day 1, 15-18 day 2, 10-12 day 3 and a glass out day 3) and runs out of a marina, so logistically very simple. Failing that, I can get you guys into a Shaw 650 next year of Sam can bring over his Magic Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Posted May 16, 2012 Share Posted May 16, 2012 The world would be a better place with more 650s. Link to post Share on other sites
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