by Paul Pascoe
Recently I attended two regattas in Asia as Chairman of the Jury. The two events were quite different but both open to all competitors and sailed on provided keelboats. The organisers of both events have encouraged me to see if there are teams from Australia that would like to compete in next year’s events. Both events have had Australian teams in the past but not for the last couple of years.
The first is a long distance race, the Far East Cup, held over four weeks with four offshore legs, although mostly more like coastal legs. The event starts in Qingdao, China, around the Korean peninsula to Vladivostok Russia, then to Pohang Korea, Mokpo Korea and finishing back in Qingdao. Each stopover is generally about three days with a media in port race during one of the days. Obviously the stop in Russia is problematic at present, but hopefully not forever and I personally skipped this stopover. Most crews had team members who only did a couple of legs so there is no need to do the entire event. There is a link below to the NOR for this year’s race, but in terms of financials, there is no entry fee, no charter fee, the boats are provided Beneteau First 40’s, the accommodation and food at each stopover is included, and the only costs for competitors are the flights in/out of Qingdao ($A600 ish) as well as provisioning on the boats. There is also a $US2000 damage deposit. First prize includes a trophy and $US10,000, second $US5,000 and third $3,000. Unfortunately all of the communication is via WeChat (the Chinese equivalent of WhatsApp), but to view the 2024 NOR, I have loaded a copy to the following website (English version at the bottom):
The second event I attended was in BeiHai which was an “around the sticks” regatta sailed on thirty provided J80s. BeiHai is a beautiful location with golden beaches and our hotel right on the beach. Again, the event is well sponsored with the entry fee of just over $A1000 covering boat charter and accommodation for up to six crew members during the event. Prize money is $A8000 for first and down to $450 for eighth place. They have a very basic website, but it does include the NOR.
For an event report with a few good images:
There are other events in China such as the CCOR regatta sailed over the Chinese holiday of May 1st and sailed on Far East 28’s and J80’s.
If anyone is interested in doing any of these regattas, I would be more than happy to put you in contact with the organisers.