Jamie McWilliam brings us up to date with race by race details of their 2010 Championship.

Marty wrote a report for Day 1, it's at http://www.sail-world.com/Asia/Hong-Kong-Etchells-Showdown-Race-Day-1/66182 - thanks Marty!

Day 2: The second and final day of the 2010 Hong Kong Etchells Championships was supposed to be a lighter and altogether more pleasant affair than Saturday's 18+ knots and dishwasher waves. But it didn't turn out that way - if anything, it was windier, and with constant rain, visibility ranging from 200yds to a mile, and the odd hellish lightning strike, it was more like Europe than the tropics...

Race 3: The left was SO good on Saturday that it was no surprise to see the pin very popular for race 3, with 713 Jamie McWilliam taking it from 884 Marty Kaye and 1046 Laurence Mead. 1269 Mark Thornburrow got a nice one in the middle, but series leader 1193 Ante Razmilovic had a poor one. McWilliam struggled to go fast enough to convert the start into a cross, and after a long pair of drags Mead led into the top mark followed by Thornburrow. Razmilovic and Kaye were both very skinny on the starboard layline approaching the mark and when McWilliam tacked in on top of them the dirty air made their position impossible and both of them had to gybe out. After a run of furious pumping and surfing Thornburrow led around from McWilliam, Mead being unable to get enough vang on due to a repair being blocked out, and after another beat and run this was the finishing order too, with 788 Florent Chapatte nailing a nice 4th (perhaps indicating a resurge in Swiss fortunes just in time for the America's Cup?) with Razmilovic in 5th.
Standings after 3 races:
1269 Thornburrow/Farrell/Mok/Service  2-3-1=6
1193 Razmilovic/Hammersley/Razmilovic 1-1-5=7
713 McWilliam/Pender/Parker   4-2-2=8

Race 4:
With no reason to doubt the value of playing the left, albeit you'd want to be pretty fast to avoid getting locked out, Razmilovic got a cracker about 3 up from the pin and worked the left HARD to lead round the top mark from Thornburrow, Mead, and 787 Warwick Downes, back from their disastrous broken main halyard of Saturday. At the bottom mark the front 3 were almost line abreast, but Thornburrow's race ended when he went trawling and got the kite completely under the boat, leading to his retirement. Razmilovic and Mead fought it out up the middle left for the lead, with Mead holding it comfortably upwind, but his vang issues caught up with him downwind as Razmilovic caught a couple of huge surfs just prior to the finish and nipped through to win it by a half-length or so. McWilliam again went very quickly downhill to close right up and nip Downes for 3rd.
Standings after 4 races:
1193 Razmilovic/Hammersley/Razmilovic 1-1-5-1=8
713 McWilliam/Pender/Parker   4-2-2-3=11
884 Kaye/Watson/Norton    3-4-8-5=20

Race 5:
As if it wasn't exciting enough already, the day's tension was heightened by the arrival of an ugly low black cloud over Lamma, accompanied by Zeus-like thunder and lightning and near-zero visibility. The fleet got a bit punchy for this start (or maybe the RO couldn't see anything?!) and had a general recall, but second time around they got away cleanly in about 15 knots, McWilliam nailing the pin and working the left into a big lead at the top mark from Downes, Thornburrow and Mead. Razmilovic had a poor beat to be mid-fleet. There weren't a lot of changes after that, with McWilliam finally taking his first gun followed by Thornburrow and Downes, Razmilovic's charge having been halted by an incident near the top mark second time around.
Standings after 5 races (discards in brackets):
713 McWilliam/Pender/Parker   (4)-2-2-3-1=8 or 12 before discard
1193 Razmilovic/Hammersley/Razmilovic 1-1-5-1-(6)=8 or 14 before discard
1269 Thornburrow/Mok/Farrell/Service  2-3-1-(DNF)-2=8 or 28 before discard

Race 6:
So basically it was a simple 3-boat shootout, who beat who. Assuming at least one of the 3 boats was going to finish inside the top 4 in the last race. The breeze was definitely down a bit now, blowing about 13-15 knots, and a clearance was coming through. There was quite a bit of pin bias in this one, and Marty Kaye nailed it from Thornburrow, Mead and Razmilovic, with McWilliam further up the line but well jumped out. As the breeze got lighter and went further left, Razmilovic was first to flip onto port after about 5 minutes, and McWilliam set up ahead and to leeward of him, about 200 yards below the port layline. The leaders carried on into the left, but as the breeze backed another 10 degrees or so they wound up overstanding a bit and Razmilovic got round in the lead with Kaye second, Thornburrow third, and McWilliam 4th. Down the run it was a frenzy of jockeying for position, with McWilliam getting through Thornburrow and then getting re-rolled by an aggressive gybe move. The breeze was down to about 10-12 now and while Razmilovic led around, McWilliam's approach on port to the bottom mark at pace paid off when he sailed through Kaye's lee after the bottom mark and then flipped left. Thornburrow rounded in 4 and carried on on the lifted port tack with Razmilovic. Mead rounded in 6 and flipped immediately, and the breeze soon started to cave even further left. Mead came back after about 4 minutes and McWilliam set up on his lee bow, and these 2 and Downes put the hammer down and tried to foot hard back across the leaders who were struggling back from the right side. It soon became apparent that Mead now had the lead, and Downes got through into second with some cracking pace through McWilliam's lee. 1235 Dave Yourieff also nailed the lefty and may well have led but overstood a bit. Razmilovic finally managed to get back over into 4th but Thornburrow was out of it.
With a run and a beat to go to decide the title, McWilliam and Razmilovic fought it out tooth and nail until one last puff down the right hand side of the run got McWilliam round the bottom mark just ahead. Razmilovic flipped immediately and McWilliam went with him, and there ensued the classic Etchells drag race where one bad wave or one light vein makes all the difference. But there was nothing in it, and after about 6 minutes Razmilovic initiated a tacking duel, but there was not enough runway and once Mead had completed a great 2nd day by winning from Downes (these two were well clear by this stage), McWilliam clinched the title with 3rd just ahead of Yourieff. Razmilovic came home 5th and Thornburrow 7th.

Final Overall Standings after 6 races (discards in brackets):
1st 713 McWilliam/Pender/Parker   (4)-2-2-3-1-3=11
2nd 1193 Razmilovic/Hammersley/Razmilovic 1-1-5-1-(6)-5=13
3rd 1269 Thornburrow/Mok/Farrell/Service  2-3-1-(DNF)-2-7=15
4th 1046 Mead/Mead/Collins/Godfrey   7-(10)-3-2-4-1=17
5th 884 Kaye/Watson/Norton    3-4-8-5-5-(10)=25
Full results at: http://www.rhkyc.org.hk/article.aspx?a=253&c=111

Many thanks to race officers Helmuth Hennig, Frank Van Kempen and JP Churchouse.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ghm4adnWAZY&feature=related
Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=145581&id=192675872654&ref=mf
Tracker: http://www.tacktracker.com/web/races?rgid=297844569&rcNum=28