The tropical island of Hainan, with its
stunning coastline and beautiful greenery, and the South China Sea
provided the IRC 1&2 twelve boat strong fleet with a spectacular
setting and array of sailing conditions on the first offshore leg from
Sanya to Haikou. After a fairly quiet first day, on the last stretch
North to the island's capital the crews were put to a test with stiff
breeze, gusting up to 35 knots and big waves. Moreover, nearly all boats
reported getting stuck in unmarked fishing nets, requiring some effort
get untangled from.
On Monday at 20:26
local time, Shenzen-based Swan 82 UBox crossed the line in first, not
only taking line honours but also setting the new reference time of 32
hours, 1 minute and 58 seconds. Shortly after midnight it was RHN Dubois
50 Sanya's turn to finish, followed by Archambault 40 Seawolf (IRC2) in
third and one hour and 14 minutes later by sister ship Lingshui. Ubox's
margin though was not enough to keep the top spot in corrected time.
Class IRC1 leader is Sanya, with Lingshui in second and UBox in third.
Seawolf easily got the gold in IRC2, distancing Shangui and Old Boy
Dream. The fleet will have a lay-day tomorrow in Haikou before taking on
the second leg back to Sanya via the east coast next Thursday. "It
was a great leg, it's the first time that we can have the fleet sail non
stop to Haikou to set the new reference time. The conditions were just
perfect for an challenging, exciting and fought for race." Declared race director Bernard Bonneau.
Meanwhile
the smaller IRC 3/4/5 fleet left Sanya this morning set for their first
offshore race, the 120nm route to Wanning, the attractive village with
its modern and welcoming marina, situated on the east coast. As happened
for their bigger "counterparts" on the opposite coast, they too
encountered pretty hard weather conditions, 20 to 30 knots and big swell
that forced no less than six boats to abandon racing. According to the
race tracker at mid-afternoon the Mills41 Ambush (IRC3) was in the
overall lead, with a slight margin on Yue Liang NV Shen (IRC4) and in
third was Bavaria 40 Qihang (IRC5). The first boats are expected to
reach Wanning tomorrow.
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