Second to arrive in Sanya, Hainan (after Karl Kwok’s MOD Beau Geste) and claiming Monohull Line Honours was Sam Chan’s TP52 FreeFire.  FreeFire arrived on Friday night at 20h 15m 40s HK time, with an elapsed time of 32h 55m 40s. Sam Chan is the only owner to have a version of FreeFiretake part in every edition of the Hong Kong to Hainan Race.

Racing into Sanya shortly after was Joachim Isler and Drew Taylor’s Mills 41 Ambush, arriving at 22h 34min 54s HK time and taking the IRC Overall win!

Isler was thrilled “We were the first monohull out of the harbour and held on to the lead until just before mark TCS3 was the first highlight.  There was great racing; first with the jib top and then with the A4.   We recorded fantastic speeds topping at 25kts which very exhilarating.   It was a little bit light today; but we had a tremendous finish coming in with 20kts of breeze. So all in all, a fantastic offshore sprint.   It’s brilliant to be leading IRC Overall.  All of the crew worked extremely hard the whole race. I think it’s a well deserved result and it would have been all the more sweeter with my friend and co-owner Drew on board; he was sorely missed.”

Fred Kinmonth and Nick Burns’ GTS 43 Mandrake III, woke the shore crew up with their early arrival at 05h 31min 46s this morning putting them in 3rd IRC Overall.  “We had a tiny bit of trouble dropping the spinnaker at one point and it’s no longer in one piece; that was probably our low point of the Race but the rest of it was magnificent. A finer body of men, one could not possibly find. I would say we probably had one of the best crew we have ever had, in terms of years of experience. Superb racing.” said Kinmonth shortly after arriving at the pontoon.

The rest of the fleet continue to sail to the south of the rhumb line and are expected to arrive throughout the afternoon and evening tonight. The prizegiving will be held tonight at Sanya Serenity Marina.