Sunsail regulars mark 10 years of Phuket King's Cup Regattas

by Event Media on 21 Aug 2009 The Phuket King's Cup Regatta attracts people of all ages and sailing abilities, from all corners of the globe, year-after-year. A veritable United Nations of sailing events, participants sing the beauties of Phuket, it's waters and the welcoming hospitality of Thais. The Phuket King's Cup Regatta catch up with King's Cup regular Tony Oates who talks about his multi-skilled and multi-national crew mates, their experiences of the regatta, and the fact they are returning to the Phuket King's Cup Regatta for the tenth consecutive year, and tenth consecutive year chartering with Sunsail Thailand.

“For the last ten years (2009 will be the tenth year) we have participated in the King's Cup as a varied crew - but most years with the same core members. We are:

:--> Robert Jeltes, our skipper, a Dutch guy who lives mostly in the UK and has many varied business interests but is probably most noted for being the man who turned the Dubarry boot into a major success story.

:--> Peter Christensen, an American who lives in Amsterdam but spends weekdays in the UK running an online music retail operation called iMuso.

:--> Alan Stokes, a Brit living in Johannesburg, South Africa who has been in the venture capital game for many years but now owns a coconut plantation in Mozambique.

:--> Sutat (Pok) Kohkiat and Siri (Niem) Wongkamolchun are Thai business associates and friends of Tony Oates who live in Bangkok. Pok is very well known and respected within the Thai music industry.

:--> Finally me (Tony Oates). I’m an English guy who lives half in Bangkok and half in London running pro audio distribution companies in each location.

“We always travel with our own Entertainment Supervisor who generally stays ashore unless we are short a crew member for some reason. He is Ian Jones from London who is MD of pro audio and communications company HHB. Levels of sailing experience when we started doing the King's Cup ranged from a lifetime of sailing and racing yachts to never having pulled a bit of string before.

“Nobody in the core crew does any other racing during the year (these days) apart from the King's Cup. We keep meaning to change this but….. Occasionally we have had a crew member or two who race regularly – but this is the exception rather than the rule.”

Lovers of life and sailing, and long-time (ten years) Sunsail charters.

“We have always chartered from Sunsail in Phuket. Frankly, with the old import problems on yachts in Thailand, there was not a whole bunch of choice in the early days. For the first five years we chartered various bareboats in the 40/45 foot region. We never got anywhere in terms of a result but we had a load of fun and definitely deserved medals for going out every day regardless of physical condition – usually involving hangovers and very little sleep. During this time, the King's Cup suffered from several years of very light and shifty winds – sometimes none at all. In well designed and kitted racing yachts this is still a challenge – but one that can be managed. On an old charter tub with very basic furling sails and no kite, those circa 25 mile courses were just impossible to finish. Floating around out there for eight hours in the blazing sun and still not even finishing the course became somewhat frustrating. King's Cup appeared to go through a bad patch around then and we saw the numbers of participants diminish – probably as a result of repeated poor sailing conditions.

“Five years ago we decided to change tack and switch to the Sunsail One Design 35 foot class. This small fleet of six identical boats creates a great ‘race within a race’ scenario and are a lot more enjoyable on days when there is little or no wind. They’ve all got decent kites for a start! No handicaps to calculate also make the One Designs very easy to end the race short at a course gate. Less time getting barbequed on deck and more time in the bar. Perfect. Our best result was in 2005 when we won Race 4 and came second overall for the week. Next best was 2006 when we got a first in the final round the cans race and third for the week. The other years we have hovered between fifth and sixth. To be fair, most of the other crews are fairly serious racing dudes or do a hell of a lot of sailing – unlike us.

“We have stayed with Sunsail because they really do make an effort during King's Cup in terms of doing the extra to look after their clients. All the guys have a real ‘can do’ attitude and always get us out there for the next race, regardless of damage done in the previous. Bear in mind that, while Sunsail now have many new boats in the Phuket fleet since the tax and duty changed some years back, some of the fleet is getting on. I recall that last year we sheared the boom gooseneck at the last gate on long course and limped in on the genny with a fairly horrendous mess on deck. The Sunsail guys found a metalworker in Phuket town prepared to work into the night to fabricate a new gooseneck and the next morning we arrived to find a totally ship shape vessel. That sort of service is just essential when racing such boats and it’s always delivered with a smile.”

Coming for their tenth year, we asked, why the King's Cup?

“For us, the King's Cup has a lot to do with geography. Half the core crew are pretty much based in Thailand and the others mostly visit Thailand at least two or three times a year. The timing of King's Cup is generally pretty good for most of us. The whole event is just really good fun and nobody would ever miss it intentionally. The Suvarnabhumi shut down last year caused everyone major problems – including ourselves. We had an additional South African last year (my brother Simon, English but has lived out there for almost 40 years now). Amazingly, despite some unbelievable routing and days of travel, everyone eventually made it except Peter Christensen - who finally had to abort when the cost of getting to Phuket from Amsterdam looked like breaching the 5,000 Euro level. He was not a happy bunny at all. Fortunately, one of the occasional crew members – Paul Jones – had the reverse problem to Peter. He was due in France for business meetings during the King's Cup week but couldn’t get there due to the airport closure. He lives between Bangkok, Cha-am and Khao Lak. He happened to be in Khao Lak at the time, so he just drove down the road and filled in for the week.”

With nine years of 'experience' under the belt, we asked what of the Regatta Tony and team would like to see changed.

“One negative aspect for us is the two start lines. Most of the other regattas we have done use (or at least used to) a single start line and it’s way more exciting (including constantly dodging collisions, of course). However, what we really miss is being up close to the serious boats. We spend most of the week just seeing them way in the distance. Only in the round-the-cans races do we sometimes get close. There’s something totally magical about being in the same stretch of water as those 30-metre beauties – even if only for those brief moments as they glide away silently and majestically.”