Adrenaline is set to soar at the Royal Langkawi International Regatta 2020

The staff, participating skippers and crews at the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club are hyped for the Belt & Road Royal Langkawi International Regatta on January 6 to 11, 2020.

Contestants for the 18^th Belt & Road Royal Langkawi International Regatta are diverse, coming all the way from Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Russia, Japan, Great Britain, Austria, the Netherlands and the United States of America.

All sailing boats will compete for prestigious titles under seven classes in the highly anticipated annual sailing event – the Racing, IRC 1 and IRC 2 class, Club class, Multihull class, Sportsboat class, and Ocean Rover/White Sail class.

Awards at Stake at the Royal Langkawi International Regatta 2020

Trophies and awards include the coveted Prime Minister’s Challenge Trophy (Racing class), the Commodore’s Challenge Cup (Club Cruising class), the LADA-IRC Challenge Trophy (IRC 1 class), RLIR-IRC2 Challenge Trophy (IRC 2 class), Langkawi Sports Trophy (Sportsboat class), as well as the Malaysia Multihull Challenge Cup (Multihull class).

For the Racing class, all attention possibly goes to Ray Roberts and Team Hollywood from Australia who were dominating this category in 2019. However, there is tough competition from challengers from the Netherlands, Singapore and Malaysia in this class.

Followed by IRC class where Mata Hari skippered by Vincent Chan from Malaysia is coming back to defend their title which they won for the past 4 years in a row. Char Chan from Japan will give them a hard fight again. Other regulars such as Phoenix, Meraki, Uminoko and The Blue Angel guarantee that this will be a very competitive class once again.

In the Multihull class, Allegro and Fetz Ma will be competing once again. The Club Class will see familiar faces and some new challengers. The Ocean Rover/White Sail class once again features boats like Eveline and the ever-popular Chantique Team. The Sportsboat class will feature competitors from Malaysia.

Contestants will race to win the Prime Minister’s Challenge Trophy in the Racing class category, Commodore’s Challenge Cup for the club-registered cruisers, LADA-IRC Challenge Trophy for IRC 1 class, RLIR-IRC2 Challenge Trophy for IRC2 class, The Langkawi Sports Boat class and Multihull Challenge Cup is for participants in the Multihull category.

One team will be presented with the Tunku Abdullah Sportsmanship Award for fair racing and comradeship, on water and land, as a tribute to the late Founding Chairman and the first Commodore of the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club (RLYC), Almarhum Tunku Tan Sri Abdullah Tuanku Abdul Rahman. All participating boat crews vote for this Award.

The Regatta Director, Mr Tayfun Koksal said, “I’m very excited about the 18^th edition of the event and I’m expecting to see a lot of tough challenges from the contestants this year. We all hope for strong winds during the week of the 18^th regatta as it will be more fun for all the participating boats. We also intend to make the closing dinner and after-regatta party the biggest party of the year in Langkawi.”

The 18^th Belt & Road Royal Langkawi International Regatta is approved and sanctioned by the World Sailing (formerly ISAF) and Malaysian Sailing Association (MSA).

Sailing instructions and race courses can be downloaded at their website www.langkawiregatta.com.

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