(Xiamen, China)- Who said good sailing didn’t exist in China. 4 Days, 4
umpires, 17 teams, 64 Races, 2 Black Flags, more ‘Y’ Flags, green, blue
and yellows than you could shake a stick yet not one Rule 14
infringement and all this with a loss of 2 hours a day on the first 3
days. In one semi-final, on one 800m windward leg, 27 tacks apiece and
on the final day 23 knots of wind – more than they can seemingly handle
in the America’s Cup.The Club Cup, as it is often known amongst sailors in China, is the oldest keelboat regatta in China and it would be a fair guess that it is the largest (for Chinese sailors), the highest quality, and most respected keel boat regatta in the country.
Started as a challenge between two clubs in beat up J-24s almost 10 years ago it pre-dates the more commercial China Cup International Regatta by a couple of years but the biggest difference is that this is a Chinese Regatta for Chinese teams not racing charter for predominantly a bunch of foreigners and the event has grown in size, quality and stature year on year.
The speed at which this event has matured both in terms of race management and the skill levels of the competitors is little shy of unbelievable, there is obviously a lot of coaching, practice and perhaps even video watching going on in Chinese sailing circles.
In the past it has been run over the week of the Chinese National Holiday, this year the event had to be split into a preliminary fleet racing regatta where the 30 entries were whittled down to 16 who returned to Xiamen 3 weeks later (this past extended weekend) for 4 days of knock-out match racing.
This match racing could best be described as competitive with the flags flying almost as much as the spray on the final day yet so often the teams could be seen giving each other the thumbs up and applauding each other as they crossed the finish line with victories that were incredibly frequently not assured until the last 100m of the race track.
The
first 3 days lost an average of 2 hours per day due to the breeze
being, simply put – somewhere else but the team comprising of PRO Kang
Peng, Li Li, the “glue” that held the event together, and the umpire
team of Jono, Al, Lauren and GG, not forgetting Jim Johnstone who
tirelessly fixed breakdowns and handled boat swaps kept the event pretty
much on schedule albeit with nav-lights required on the umpire boats
for the return to the marina on a couple of days. The semi-finals saw
both extremes of weather from 6 knots for the first 2 races to over 25+
kts for the completion of the final matches.Little by little the 16 teams were whittled down to the finalists Xiamen’s Blue Sea YC and Yomovo Sailing Club from Hainan. Each race within this match was won by boat lengths rather than legs and proved to be a hard fought battle to the final finish line. In one pre-start the boats did so many spins round each other than the umpires appeared to be demoted with the umpire flag on their RIB turned from a ‘U’ to a ‘J’. (Think about it)!
There were attempts, some more successful than others, to use just about every rule in the book to encourage the umpires to fly the other boats flag but the umpires decisions were accepted in the right spirit with, quite naturally, one or two close decisions having to be talked through on the dock later.
There were lead swaps where a runaway leader dropped the kite in the tide allowing the other boat to take over and run away themselves, to races where the protagonists crossed the finish line overlapped as they had been for virtually the whole race.
Ultimately it was Xiamen’s Blue Sea SC who prevailed winning the competition to become the challengers to the current holders Liuzhou Sailing Club with the local team from Xiamen Island prevailing 4-1 over the defenders although the scoreline suggests less close racing than reality.
So it is all over for another year, and although there may be pretenders to the throne of the Club Cup, certainly as far as match racing is concerned, nothing in China even comes close. Thanks for the contribution from Hong Kong’s Alistair Skinner.
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