Blissed out on the Babe Boat

An experienced crew with a few lookers comes away with the pride of a third-overall-place finish at the King's Cup Regatta

Published on December 22, 2007

Blissed out on the Babe Boat

King's Cup Regatta in Phuket

Sailboats colliding, catamarans capsizing, spinnakers ripped to rags by blistering wind - it was a great King's Cup Regatta in Phuket this year.

On a bright Monday morning, under a blustery 20-knot breeze, a record 104 boats blasted over the line in staggered starts for the 16 classes.

Remington, our 13-metre Sparks & Spellman cruiser, crossed the line at 9.15. We were in IRC-3 class with four competitors: Wings, Sarabande, Patrice and Cinders.

In the cockpit were three veterans of the race last year. Crazy Larry, the sixtyish California surfer dude, manned the tiller. Flanking him were two burly Hawaiian rugby players: Jerry at the mainsail and Neil the tactician and spinnaker trimmer. On the foredeck scrambled three newcomers from San Diego, friends of Larry's: a couple Bo and Sherry along with Mark, all three in the real estate business. Bo and Larry met in 1992 at the San Diego Marina where their boats have been berthed back-to-back ever since.

Our first boat five years ago, Southern Cross, was known as the Babe Boat, crewed by two busty Indian goddesses and a 188-cm blond Canadian. But Nish, Apollo and Christa couldn't make it this year. Were we doomed to be the Babeless Boat?

No, along with me on the rail amidships sprawled Liz and Tamara. Liz was a blond Norwegian sprite teaching English in Phuket, Tamara a voluptuous dark-skinned Canadian on her way home from a consultant gig with Oxfam in Bangkok. We three were Rail Meat, legs over the rail and leaning out as the boat tilted waaaaaaaay over to starboard in gusting wind and choppy seas.

We took off on a 37-kilometre race to Koh Hi and Koh Aeo, up along the inside, downwind along the outside. Tearing along at seven to eight knots, we were soon in third place behind Wings, a 13-metre Serendipity, and Sarabande, a 13.5-metre Swan. Wings was owned by an American couple out of Seattle with a crew from Singapore. They were the boat to beat.

Our own Remington was owned by Jim Ellis from Vancouver. He and Larry and Neil kept up a constant chatter about the wind and currents and manoeuvres of our rivals: knocks, lifts, spankers, freight trains.

At 11.30, headed for the northern headland of Koh Ao, we broke for sandwiches of salami and cheese and pesto made by Tamara and Liz. Larry complained about the heavy work of pushing the tiller.

"This thing is killing me," he said.

The crew sympathised with hoots of derision.

"What are you, a katoey?"

"Suck it up!"

"Be a man!"

Around Koh Aeo we threw up the spinnaker and barged downwind toward the finish line. We crossed, still at third, at 2.15.

The next morning we reefed the main and jib for a corkscrew race around the cans. Jim explained that Remington had been built in 1971 in Italy.

"It's a Galatea, the Ferrari of sailboats."

Jim had been a civil engineer/surveyor building highways in Canada's Far North. After ten years, he was laid off. So he wandered for the next six years through 35 countries, backpacking and crewing on boats.

Fourteen years ago, he found Remington crumbling into ruins in a corner of a Phuket boatyard.

"It looked so lonely. So I fixed it up and have been sailing it ever since."

Larry decided to take a sharp tack off the starting line to pick up more wind but this proved a mistake and as we turned at the first mark, we were running dead last. But we hauled up the spinnaker smartly and caught up with the rest of the fleet, passing Patrice and Cinders and bearing down on Sarabunde. We twisted and turned on a course north of Patong Beach and caught a roaring wind - "The Kamala Express!" cried Neil - as we tore into the final reach. At noon, the spinnaker of the boat ahead of us exploded into shreds. Out came our cameras. Twenty-five minutes later, we crossed the line, snatching second place.

Race three was around Koh Hi and Koh Aeo but this time in the opposite direction. It was HM the King's birthday and the fleet lined up to pass in review of the Navy patrol boat Phuket. Lined up along the deck, the sailors saluted us. A Japanese crew bowed in unison. Our own response was to doff our caps three times. Jim left the tiller on automatic pilot and jumped up from the cockpit to join us. Whereupon the boom jibbed and smacked him on the back of the head.

After a late start at 9.50, he was still fingering the bump.

"Too bad you didn't fall into the drink," I said. "Make a good story."

"Be famous for 15 minutes."

"Or knocked unconscious and drown."

"Famous forever."

Again we were ripping along in fabulous wind, running eight to nine knots, but we just couldn't catch up with Wings which pulled out into a lead of a couple of kilometres. We finished at 1.55, fourth overall.

On the fourth race on Friday, we were looking forward to a simple race to Koh Racha and back, which might give us some advantages. We just can't point as high into the wind as the younger boats. But the Committee Boat announced the same course as on Wednesday. We groaned in frustration. We just can't win on that course and didn't, coming in third again.

The last race was a simple windward-leeward sprint around the cans and we were kind of cavalier about it. Mathematically, we're locked into third place. But we had the satisfaction of keeping up with Wings, even passing her as she headed out for the wrong marking buoy.

Nish, of the original Boat Babe crew, winner of the 2004 Boat Babe of the Year Award, flew down from Bangkok to join us. Again the winds were ferocious, gusting at 25 knots and throwing up great gouts of seawater, soaking us all along the rail. We whooped in delight.

"This is the best ever!" cried Larry.

Bearing down on the finish line, Wings suddenly shuddered to a halt as its big blue spinnaker blew apart, the two shredded halves flapping madly. Wings managed to limp onward and cross the line 10 metres ahead of us. But on corrected time, Wings placed last. We were third overall.

We crossed the line at 10.17. Out came the beers, everyone grinning madly. We all had that radiant glow that comes with the pure exhilaration of great sailing.

"Best I've had in five years," said Larry with a blissed-out smile.

James Eckardt

The Nation