Johnstone Wins On Global TV Broadcast To Billions!
(Hong Kong, China)- One day in the future it may seem like a turning point – the first ‘local’ regatta to be televised live in China. So we’re not talking about the Olympics here, or even one of the fly-by-night pro events – Volvo, Clipper, Extreme 40s, whatever – but club sailors, in J/80s, in Hong Kong harbour. Sort of, a Club event all grown up for billions of Chinese.
The event was sponsored and broadcasted by Phoenix TV. Apart from CCTV, Phoenix is the biggest broadcaster in China, and that makes them pretty ginormously huge. The Phoenix Cup is a fleet racing event to be sailed in J/80s, based out of the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, and with race management provided by RHKYC. That guarantees good organization – all that’s needed to make the event shine is a bit of sun.
It
was an inauspicious start for the first day – cold, rainy and
miserable, and with a distinct lack of wind. Competitors looked out
gloomily out from the balcony at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club. Many
wondered – with some justification – whether the racing might be canned
altogether. But when you have the assembled millions of Phoenix TV’s
China audience just waiting to switch off the horse racing and the
game-show channel and switch on to small boat racing in Hong Kong
harbour on a Saturday afternoon – well, you’d better not disappoint!First practice race, 1330 hrs start. Time for the live broadcast crews to practice their swing-and-pan shots, time for the pretty TV anchors to put on the foul weather gear, time for action on the water. The first start became a General Recall as almost the entire fleet of 22 J/80s was pushed gently over the line by the tide. Second start, same story. Third start and the fleet was away ‘clean’ for what is usually known at RHKYC as a ‘Sunset’ race (triangle-sausage-finish), right in front of the clubhouse.
The starting gun must have woken up the wind gods, as all of a sudden the breeze piped up, and crews suddenly found themselves sailing in 12-15 kts. A short beat to the windward mark – maybe 300 m – and then up went the colorful Phoenix TV and iFeng.com spinnakers. It was enough to make a photographer’s heart glad in spite of the clinging grey (and the incessant rain) as the harbour broke out all over in a rash of red and yellow.
Leeward
mark roundings with a little pressure in the sails proved troublesome
for some, and a few ‘interesting’ moments were witnessed - and in some
cases recorded. Tiffany Koo and a well-drilled crew on JELIK 6 led all
the way round the track and finished with a healthy lead, but you know
what they say about winning practice races…An interlude on shore allowed time for lunch before the ‘main event’ at 1600 hrs - timing dependent upon the arrival Guest of Honour, Mr Tung Chee Hwa, former Chief Executive of the Hong Kong SAR. He’s a busy man on a Saturday afternoon, so we just had to wait for Sir Tung. The rain came and went, and came again, and the breeze wasn’t quite so sure. But Mr Tung was on time and so was the start, and this time there were no recalls. Right on cue, in came the breeze, and the rain stopped. We never got the sunshine, but the fleet did get some good racing.
Fast-starting boats at the pin end set the pace for the first part of the race, with the fleet heading up towards the Hung Hom buoy before the pressing down towards the Shau Kei Wan mark. Almost all the boats held the North Point shore to stay out of the incoming tide, and were lifted along the line beneath the Island Eastern Corridor. 'We were tacking along the shore’' said Jim Johnstone later, 'but only changing 10-15 degrees on the compass heading between tacks. It felt really good.' But there are two sides to any race course, and JELIK 7 with Louie Perfectua at the helm ‘went the other way’. Standing on past Hung Hom and then all the way into Kowloon Bay and towards the old airport runway – a longer course, and crossing the tide completely, but at Shau Kei Wan they had a commanding lead of maybe 20 lengths. The scrap was for second place between ALCHEMIST (Nigel Reeves), JELIGNITE (Jim Johnstone), and HAKAWATI (Dan Tullberg).
The
race was Perfectua’s for the taking, but the run back down back to Hung
Hom was less kind than the beat up. ‘Low, slow, and straight down the
middle’ was JELIGNITE's program, while JELIK 5 tried to run the angles –
but although there was wind, there wasn’t enough to get a J/80 planing,
and the extra distance took a toll. Perfectua later acknowledged that
the v2.0 J/80 asymmetrics being used by most of the fleet (but not JELIK
5) allowed for deeper running, and a distinct advantage. By Hung Hom,
JELIGNITE was in the lead, and ALCHEMIST (complete with Phoenix TV
anchor smiling prettily under her Phoenix TV hat) had pushed into the
second slot.The race had to last 90 minutes, according to the TV people, so the next leg went back up to Dock buoy and then returned to Hung Hom. A bit like running a pursuit race, and trying to hit a specified time for the first finisher. No matter: an ‘S’ flag on the Cheoy Lee at Hung Hom was a finish line, with JELIGNITE cruising home to a comfortable victory. And the camera boat got back to Kellett Island and under cover, beating the nasty-looking rain squall coming in from Central.
It was a brisk reach from the Hung Hom finish back to the RHKYC - the lucky ones got there before the rain re-started. And then at 1900 hrs, to coincide once again with live broadcast, prize-giving time with Mr Liu Chang Le, Chairman and CEO of Phoenix TV, and Mr KK Yeung, Executive Vice President and CFO. On this, the company’s 15th birthday, Mr Yeung declared the Phoenix Cup to be a resounding success, and looked forward to another edition next year.
Jim Johnstone's commentary- "It was fantastic seeing 22 J/80s out in the harbour this weekend - really pleased we got a little breeze to get us around. You can find sailing tracks for the second (main) race of the day here - sure we all have something to learn from this information.