Raja Muda International Regatta - Penang to Langkawi (posted Nov 23, 2009)

Thursday, Nov 19 dawned bright and clear.  What?  No rain?  Unbelievable!

We motored to the start line and mucked around for the start.  The wind had strengthened and it promised to be a great race.  However, we mis-timed the start sequence and ended up across the line 6 minutes late.  After a while we seemed to have caught up with the boats of our class and we trudged along really nicely.

It was a pretty good sail to Langkawi and we crossed the finish line about 0016 on Friday, Nov 20.

In pitch-black environment, we attempted to find our way to the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club.  Having not been there before, we had a difficult time trying to figure out where to anchor.  We dropped anchor near the ferry terminal and went to sleep.  In the morning, we re-anchored in the bay and we have been sitting there since.

There was a race scheduled in the bay on Friday afternoon but we were too lazy to take part.  We did participate in the passage race on Saturday but did not finish due to lack of wind.  We were half a mile from the finish line when the time limit expired.  Bummer.  Only 2 boats from our class finished.  The dinner that night was very nice and we could finally feel like we can relax and start our cruising life.

We will be here until we fix our steering.  We did not do well for the race, partly due to the steering problem we have.  We have ordered a replacement part from Singapore and one of our crew will be shipping the part up to us here so we can fix the steering and hopefully, it will solve the problem.

The weather has not been too nice, with dark skies and light rain.  Not bad but enough to dampen the spirits.