His Majesty the King, a champion sailor himself in his younger days, is the patron of the annual Phuket King's Cup Regatta and for this year's Top of the Gulf Regatta, Princess Galyani has royally sponsored the 11th Coronation Cup for Platu boats. The fleet of small Platu boats were designed in Australia especially for Thai waters.

The Thailand Optimist National Championships are also being held at the same time and almost 100 mostly Thai children, none more than 16-years-old with many coming from the nearby Sattahip Naval base, will be sailing the one-man Optimists on a course right beside the Ocean Marina, giving spectators a great view of the action.

For the first time an international jury will oversee the Optimists this year. On the opposite side of the Ocean Marina a fleet of windsurfers will take to the water in their competition and demonstrations of kite surfing will be held there on the weekend.

One of the features of this year's Top of the Gulf Regatta will be the introduction of a fleet of 10 Motts - a tiny, light-weight dinghy adapted and designed from the international Moth class by His Majesty the King.

Further out to sea today the large keelboats, sports boats, Platus and ocean multihull boats will be in action. A total of seven classes of boats will be racing during the regatta and one of the most hotly contested divisions will be the ocean multihull class.

Thai veteran Radab Kanjanavanit is always hard to beat on the boat his father built, Cedar Swan, but the super-fast Moto Inzi, which was built in Phuket last year, could be the boat to watch in the multihull class.

Thai sailor Kirati Assakul on board his multihull boat Sonic is also expected to be up among the frontrunners.

The Top of the Gulf Regatta, now in its second year, has quickly grown to be one of the biggest in not only Thailand, but also all of Asia, and has become one of six large regattas now held every year in the Kingdom, the region's sailing headquarters.

Founder and principal organiser Bill Gasson, who was also one of the founders of the Phuket King's Cup Regatta and the Koh Samui Regatta, described the Top of the Gulf Regatta as "a gathering of the most racing classes of sail boats in the Kingdom".

A large contingent of local and international media assembled at the Ocean Marina Yacht Club yesterday and last night they mingled with the captains, crew and officials at the welcoming party in the yacht club grounds.

Gasson said boats from Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Australia, the UK, the Gulf, New Zealand and, of course, Thailand, will be taking part in this year's regatta.

Alan Parkhouse,

Montreechai Lumyongsatian

The Nation

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