Team Hollywood lift PM Challenge trophy, Matahari rule IRC1 class
LANGKAWI: Team Hollywood lived up to their favourites’ tag at the 17th Royal International Langkawi Regatta (RLIR) by winning the coveted Prime Minister Challenge Trophy.
Skippered by Ray Roberts, the professional team swept aside the racing class competition to win nine races they competed in, finishing with nine points.
The Australian team won one race yesterday and did not compete in the other race as the trophy was already in their hands.
Roberts was glad that the team won after a two-year absence from the regatta.
“We had to get out ahead with the conditions in Langkawi because it’s quite tricky to sail with the land mak- ing the winds swirl around, so once we had a little more practice here we got the boat performing well. Fabulous team and they all did well,” said Roberts, who has now won seven titles at the regatta.
Thai team TH72, who were champions in the last two editions of the regatta, finished with 17 points while Malaysian boat SCS Janda Baik was third on 31 points.
Malaysian team Matahari KL Registry, meanwhile, won their fifth consecutive IRC1 class title.
“We’re so happy that we managed to retain our title. The racing was really great,” said Matahari skipper Vincent Chan.
“There was great weather, competition and sea.”
The team finished with 14 points, ahead of second-placed Mega Zip who were second with 20 points after 10 races.
Vincent said they were considering having an all-Malaysian women’s team next year.
“Hopefully, it will come to fruition. We’re doing this because female sailors are under represented in regattas. 95% of the sailors are male. We thought we would help promote youth and ladies sailing,” said Chan, whose team had one female sailor this time around.
In the IRC 2 series, APW Endeavour of Whitby won with 12 points while Phoenix and The Blue Angel finished with 17 and 25 points respectively.
Fugazi were champions of the multihull class, Marikh the winners of the club class, MSA team winners of the sportsboat class while Chantique won the white sail class.