It all started in 1986 when a choose group from the elite Royal Varuna Yacht Club (RVYC) got together and determined to launch a regatta in Phuket in 1987 – as a particular tribute for the sixtieth birthday of the then King of Thailand, His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Thus the Phuket King’s Cup Regatta (PKCR) was born.
Royally linked architect M.L. Tridosyuth Devakul, affectionately known as ‘Mom Tri’, designed the celebrated trophy and generously provided his new Phuket Yacht Club Hotel at Nai Harn Bay as the regatta venue.
Starting with a mix of dinghies, beach cats, keelboats and windsurfers, this regatta has grown to draw big keelboats and ocean going catamarans and stays Thailand’s largest regatta of its kind by numbers, with a daily fleet of 90 yachts or extra.
Held always through the week that includes the former Thai King’s birthday, December 5, the PKCR achieved worldwide fame in – and out of doors – the yachting fraternity for its events, the place captains, crews, visitors and others would be a part of the revelry at a unique venue each night.
Since 1998, the regatta has been based at Kata Beach Resort (now Beyond Resort Kata) on Phuket’s west coast and, in 2016, won Best Asian Regatta of the Year within the Asia Boating Awards. With most of its fleet coming from abroad, PKCR abandoned both the 2020 and 2021 events beneath the weight of the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions in Thailand.
Fast ahead 36 years from the first PKCR and Thailand is now house to 12 regattas, two superyacht events and action-packed weekend yacht racing programs at the country’s two principal ‘big boat’ clubs.
PKCR had it all its own means until 1998, when photographer John Everingham, together with a few yachting associates, based the Phang Nga Bay Regatta, primarily in order to seize gorgeous pictures of yachts crusing between the bay’s dramatic limestone karsts. In 2011, Phuket Yacht Club (PYC) – previously Ao Chalong Yacht Club – stepped in to reserve it from extinction, earlier than handing the reigns over to Regattas Asia in 2012.
With a reputation change to The Bay Regatta (TBR) along the finest way, this occasion distinguishes itself by transferring from one island or seashore resort to a different every single day and was, in its earlier days, a favourite of reside aboard cruising sailors. TBR units sail in January/February every year and has managed to keep away from lockdowns to sail uninterrupted throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
The four years from 2002 to 2005 saw the founding of three extra noteworthy regattas in Thailand: Koh Samui Regatta (KSR) in 2002, Phuket Raceweek in 2004 and Top of the Gulf Regatta in 2005.
KSR was founded by former PKCR president and serial trophy winner, Bill Gasson, motivated by getting quality yacht racing getting into his residence waters, the Gulf of Thailand. KSR attracts the cream of the Asian fleet, the big racing class yachts from Hong Kong, but without a robust native fleet has all the time struggled for numbers. In its sixth 12 months (2007), to keep it from going under, Grenville Fordham’s Image Asia Events – Phuket boat show organiser and South East Asia Pilot publisher – took on the organisation for one 12 months.
Subsequently, after a couple of years’ stewardship by Callum Laing’s Mobyelite, TBR organisers, Regattas Asia, added KSR to their portfolio and have introduced that the 19th regatta in 2022 will move from its traditional slot in May to July, having missed 2020 and 2021 owing to Thailand’s Covid-19 pandemic restrictions.
Next up, July 2004 noticed the inaugural PRW, based by Fordham and enterprise associate Andy Dowden, both veterans of the PKCR organising committee. Based on the Evason Resort on Phuket’s southeast coast for eight years, PRW claimed the excellence of being Thailand’s only main low season regatta, when tougher racing circumstances usually prevail.
Eschewing the Thailand regatta ‘template’ of a different get together venue every night time, PRW distinguished itself with its one-regatta-one-venue policy, providing magnificent after-race five-star parties at the host venue four nights out of five.
With the closure of Evason Phuket after the 2011 occasion – the 12 months PRW was voted Best Asian Regatta of the Year, beating PKCR’s win by five years – the regatta relocated efficiently to Cape Panwa Hotel in 2012. In 2013, Media Business Services acquired the rights from IAE.
Disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, and staged out of Phuket Cruising Yacht Club (PCYC) in 2021, PRW is reported to be close to finalising a deal for a brand new residence for 2022 onwards, with new dates in late June.
Last however not least among the ‘big boys’, Pattaya’s Ocean Marina Yacht Club (OMYC) hosted the inaugural Top of the Gulf Regatta in May 2005. Another Gasson brainchild, TOGR capitalised on the Hong Kong and Singapore yachts heading for Koh Samui in May, fixing its dates instantly before the island regatta.
With a relatively small base of ‘big boats’, TOGR makes up its numbers by incorporating dinghy and Platu events and attracting crew by virtue of its proximity to Bangkok. In 2019, the fleet of thirteen ‘big boats’ was boosted by 12 Platus and around a hundred and eighty assorted dinghies. Despite the excellence of being the only regatta in Thailand sailed out of a marina, Covid-19 pandemic meant TOGR was unable to happen in 2020 or 2021; the 2022 edition, initially scheduled for April/May, has been postponed with no dates yet announced.
Then there are the ‘little boat’ regattas. There’s the Thailand Optimist Open Championship, based in 1976 and raced out of OMYC, as a lot as 2019 as a part of TOGR. The Coronation Cup, a Platu one-design event, was founded in 1996 and, from 2005 to 2019, has fashioned part of the TOGR fleet.
RVYC hosts a separate dinghy event, the Admiral’s Cup, in January/February each year, that includes an 80-90 robust fleet of principally Optimists, with a sprinkling of Laser dinghies. And then there was the Hua Hin Regatta, based by the Yacht Racing Association of Thailand (YRAT) in 2000; a largely dinghy occasion that includes a wide variety of designs, the final version was in 2017.
Phuket’s PYC organises weekend sailing and three annual club events. There’s a multihull mini-regatta based in 2008 that, since the Covid-19 pandemic, has strangely allowed monohulls to taint its status as “Asia’s biggest multihull-only event”. Then there are two oddly-named races, The ‘Jai Dee (Good Heart) Regatta’ and the ‘Sailors’ Regatta’ – as if different regattas are black-hearted occasions concentrating on non-sailors… Someone at PYC must have a powerful sense of irony.
Then there’s Pattaya’s OMYC, which additionally has โซล่าเซลล์ราคาถูกคุณภาพดี racing fleet – albeit disrupted by Covid-19 pandemic-related restrictions.
Finally, Phuket plays host to two superyacht events: the Asia Superyacht Rendezvous (ASR), based in 2002 with the final recorded rendezvous happening in 2019 and the Kata Rocks Superyacht Rendezvous (KRSR), first staged in December 2016 and running each December throughout the Covid-19 pandemic years. Not actual races, both ASR and KRSR are invitation-only events for superyacht owners, captains and diverse excessive internet value people to community, play ‘boat games’ and get together.
No different Southeast Asian nation can declare as rich and varied an all-year-round yachting calendar as Thailand – a sadly undervalued and under-utilised ‘resource’ by way of excessive value national tourism marketing..