Malaysian Match Racing Championships - Final

Tiffany Khoo's Team UK Halsey Gapurna comes out on top
by David Moxey - RSYC Sailing Manager

Tiffany Khoo and her Team UK Halsey Gapurna achieved a clean sheet at this years Malaysian Match Racing Championships, finishing the regatta undefeated by any of her opposing teams. They went into the first to 3 wins final against the Royal Malaysian Navy, and led from the front in all 3 races to win the championship 3-0 in the final series.

The petite final, being sailed off for 3rd and 4th places, was a first to 2 wins series between Team Selangor Gapurna 2, skippered by Ng Heng Li and Team Geopark Langkawi skippered by Mohd Afendy Abdullah. Again it was a one horse race, with the Langkawi team achieving 2 straight wins to secure 3rd place.

The championship regatta had a record entry of 7 teams from Malaysia, which is hoped, with the addition of the National Keelboat Squad will increase again next year.

Tiffany Khoo and her team now go on to race as the Malaysian entry in this years Monsoon Cup to be saled in Nov - Dec 2007.

Malaysian & Asian Match Racing Championships - Semi Finals

Malaysian Team qualifiers for Monsoon Cup
by David Moxey - RSYC Sailing Manager

05 Sept 07: A brilliant sailing day in Terengganu, with lighter winds in the morning session, but a fresh, building sea breeze filling in the afternoon to make conditions challenging for the racing crews.

In the first Round Robin part of the regatta, Tiffany Khoo and her team led from the start, and finished the round robin element with a clean sheet of 6 wins from 6 races. The Royal Malaysian Navy finsihed second with Mohd Razali Bin Mansor winning 5 of their 6 first stage races, losing only to Tiffany Khoos team UK Halsey Gapurna.

Team Langkawi, led by the MYA Development Officer Mohd Afendy Abdullah finished in 3rd place with 4 wins and Gapurna Selangor 2's Ng Heng Li and his youth crew took the 4th place in the group going through to the finals with 3 wins from the 6 race series.

From the other entrants, Gapurna Selangor 2's Ng Ai Li finished best in 5th place, missing the cut by just 1 point, with Hamdan bin yahya from Team Terengganu and Rizal Mahadi bin Sazali from the Johor Yachting Association finishing in 6th and 7th positions respectively.

After a short break for lunch, the race committee commenced the sail off for 5th to 7th positions, which at the end of the days racing saw no change to the placings at the end of the first round robin stage.

On completion they ran the two semi finals, with the two best placed skippers being given the opportunity to choose their opponent. Best placed, Tiffany Khoo chose Team Langkawi as her opponents, leaving the Royal Malaysian Navy to compete against Gapurna Selangor 2's Ng Heng Li.

In an increasing sea breeze, the semi finals got underway, with last years champion, Tiffany Khoo continuing her dominance of this event with 3 straight wins in the first to 3 wins semi finals.

The other semi final however was not so easily decided, the Royal Malaysian Navy team won the first two races back to back, leaving Selangor Gapurna 2 all the racing to do to try to keep the heat open.

As in the Youth One Design regatta at RSYC in May, Ng Heng Li and his crew found their form, and matched the Navy by winning the next two races.

The right to compete in the final to represent Malaysia came down to the last race - both boats got off clean from the line, and a windward leg tacking battle commenced to try to achieve superiority. At the windward mark it was Ng Heng Li first round, with the Navy hot on his stern. He led the downwind leg as well, taking the action off to the right hand side of the course and sailing a fast spinnaker reach back to the leeward mark, by now he had managed to establish a small lead over the Navy team - but holding the reach too long proved to be his downfall.

While approaching the mark, he called for a late drop, the spinnaker halyard fouled, and he was unable to recover the sail, sailing past the mark at speed, and allowing the Navy to come in clean and clear the mark in the lead. By the time the sail had been recovered the race was lost.. The crew tried hard to make up the lost ground but it was not to be and the Navy now face Tiffany Khoo and her team for the Monsoon Cup place as representatives for Malaysia.

Heng Li will sail off against Afendy of Langkawi in the petite final to determine 3rd and 4th places.

Placings after day 2

1 Tiffany Khoo UK Halsey Gapurna
2 Mohd Razali Bin Mansor Royal Malaysian Navy
3 Ng Heng Li Gapurna Selangor 2
4 Mohd Afendy Abdullah Team Langkawi
5 Ng Ai Li Gapurna Selangor 1
6 Hamdan bin Yahya Team Terengganu
7 Rizal Mahadi bin Sazili Team Johor

Asian Match-Racing Championship - Final

BlackMatch wins Asian Match-Racing Championship qualifying title
by Adam Minoprio

Mon 10 Sep 2007: One of the rising stars of the international match racing circuit, Adam Minoprio's BlackMatch, competed in the Asian Match Racing Championship. The winner goes on to secure a place in the Grade 1 Monsoon Cup in November/December.

Hello again from BlackMatch on our final day in Malaysia: Today saw us taking on Neil Semple from Thailand in a best of five final. Having maintained a perfect scorecard for the entire week, this is certainly what we intended to carry on doing and we did so, managing to take the final 3-0.

Things didn't go totally our way though. After forcing a penalty on Neil in the first match of the day in the pre-start and sailing away for a comfortable victory, our second match saw us coming off the line on opposite tacks with Neil heading out to the favoured right hand side of the course. Neil gained a healthy lead from our mistake and we had to work extremely hard up the first beat, managing to close the gap up at the top mark.

We found ourselves heading back towards Neil on port managing to take his stern and gain starboard rights once we tacked back. This allowed us to force the Thailand team to tack just before the top mark and sail them past it, gaining the lead in the process and sailing away for another win. In the final race we forced Semple over the line at the start, meaning that he had to return to the start line and re-start, allowing us to develop a significant lead which we maintained to the finish.

This was a great event, we did what we came to do, qualifying for the Monsoon Cup in November and taking in a wealth of information needed for us to be competitive. We are looking forward to the New Zealand Match-Racing Nationals in November, and hope to better our 4th place at this event last year.

Asian Match-Racing Championship - Semi Final

Today was again in sailed in near perfect conditions. The race committee did an outstanding job, managing to finish the round robin and also the semi finals in a 12 knot sea breeze.

We finished the round robin on top with a perfect score card, this gave us the advantage of choosing our opponent to race in the Semi final. It is often the case that you would choose the perceived weakest opponent or lowest qualifier to race in the semis, but today we choose to race our nearest competitor, Martin Kaye who was representing Hong Kong.

Our reason for choosing the toughest opposition was simple, today promised stable sea breeze conditions that ensured fair racing, whereas tomorrow might have delivered more fickle conditions and a bigger risk of losing against such a tough competitor.

They don't call this the Monsoon Cup Qualifier for nothing and with ominous black clouds looming in the distance we managed to take out the semi final 3-0 and get back to into the shelter of the yacht club, before the rain started.

The other semi final was shaping up to be a lot closer and we watched with interest as James Cole (Singapore) and Neil Semple (Thailand) had a close battle for the last berth in the final. Neil Semple eventually emerged as the victor with a 3-1 scorecard.

As the Monsoon embarked on us the breeze spun around 180 degrees and the course was reset for an exhibition match race with BlackMatch taking on three time World Match Racing Champion, Peter Gimour. We managed to take the victory in a closely fought and entertaining match.

We are looking forward to the best of five final which begins tomorrow morning, and once again thanks for all the support, especially to Ross Munro and Line 7, John Brown from Waiwera Infinity and the RNZYS.

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