RHKYC San Fernando Race 2017 - Scallywag cleans up

by RHKYC Media / Guy Nowell, Sail-World Asia on 14 Apr 2017 It is now confirmed that the 100’ super maxi Scallywag owned by Seng Huang Lee has won across the board and raced her way to win three titles in the 40th Anniversary of the San Fernando Race. Scallywag is the former Ragamuffin 100/Investec Loyal/Maximus supermaxi, and she took the win in division IRC 0 and the IRC Overall title, and set a new race record of 34h 27m 17s, crushing the time set 16 years ago by Sam Chan’s 70’ ULDB Sled, FreeFire in 2001 by an astonishing 15h 27m 55s.

On arrival close to midnight on Thursday, Scallywag’s Skipper David Witt said, “Today's sailing was very nice; flat water, perfect sailing, good sunrise this morning and a nice sunset tonight. The first night was a little rough and we had a major structural failure but we managed to get here in one piece so it's all good.” Elaborating, he said, “We were sailing in a pretty ugly sea, and then the breeze died, meaning that the boat came more upright. We needed to get some more sail area up there in order to get the heel angle right – this boat is pretty flat-bottomed, so she pounds hard in a seaway. Before we could get some more sail up we sustained a substantial crack across the side deck, starboard side, aft... but the forecast for 7-10kts of breeze for the rest of the race meant that as long as we didn’t put too much runner on we’d be ok.”

Jack Chen, nephew of Scallywag’s owner Seng Huang Lee, was delighted to have completed his first offshore race. “Very happy, very excited... absolutely loved it. My first race was the 2016 Land Rover Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race, when a keel ram exploded, so we had to retire.”

Next down the pike were the two TP52s, Standard Insurance Centennial (Judes Echauz) finishing at 20.12h and Free Fire (Sam Chan) at 20.41h. And then Black Baza (Steve Manning/Anthony Root) at 21.20h and Ambush (Joachim Isler/Drew Taylor) at 22.08h.

As at midnight Friday all other boats are still at sea. Anthony Day’s XC50 Explorer currently leads the IRC Premier Cruising division, and and Tim Bruce’s Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 49 Diamond Queen has the whip hand in HKPN.

For further information, see the event website www.sanfernandorace.com