AntarcticPilot
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Just seen the New Year in here! Happy New Year, Sun Nin Fai Lok and Lang may yer Lum Reek!
Happy New Year from Hong Kong!
- Thread starter AntarcticPilot
- Start date
johnalison
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My granddaughter is just around the corner in S Korea. You wouldn't mind just popping round to wish her HNY for me would you?
AntarcticPilot
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Perhaps my friend who is 3rd Officer on Adora Magic City might find it more convenient - she's based in Shanghai, and does cruises to Japan going right past the Korean Peninsula!
AntarcticPilot
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They're sailing today and I've asked her to wave at S Korea as they pass it!
MontyMariner
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Holiday or working for the Chinese?
AntarcticPilot
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Sort of neither! I am working, but it's the same work I do at home - I do freelance editing work for academic authors - but the main reason is because I have 6 sisters-in-law here, many nephews and nieces and even great-nephews and nieces; many friends and also business contacts. So it seemed like a good idea to spend the winter here!
Actually it's quite funny. I am from the UK, and as my forum name suggests I am a fairly cold-adapted person! Temperatures here dropped to around 8 or 9°C just before Christmas, and all the locals were in down jackets and so on - I'm still in (at most) a light pullover, and am quite happy in a t-shirt! Mostly it's around 20°C and if it gets much higher, I'm into shorts! But all the locals are shivering
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MontyMariner
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Envy
DJE
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Are the locals up on the peak before dawn trying to find frost on the grass? Used to happen once or twice a year when I lived there.Sort of neither! I am working, but it's the same work I do at home - I do freelance editing work for academic authors - but the main reason is because I have 6 sisters-in-law here, many nephews and nieces and even great-nephews and nieces; many friends and also business contacts. So it seemed like a good idea to spend the winter here!
Actually it's quite funny. I am from the UK, and as my forum name suggests I am a fairly cold-adapted person! Temperatures here dropped to around 8 or 9°C just before Christmas, and all the locals were in down jackets and so on - I'm still in (at most) a light pullover, and am quite happy in a t-shirt! Mostly it's around 20°C and if it gets much higher, I'm into shorts! But all the locals are shivering
AntarcticPilot
Well-known member
I haven't heard about that, and where I am is probably as high as the Peak - I'm in East Kowloon, at Lam Tin, and I guess my apartment isn't far below the level of the Peak. I know it's a long way up from the MTR station to my apartment block! But the Island is foreign territory for me - I have friends in Wan Chai, but I tend to avoid the Island; too crowded, too confusing and too steep! And there are much higher hills in Kowloon and the New Territories. I think I saw a report from the Observatory of frost on high ground in the Northern new territories a week or so ago.
LittleSister
Well-known member
Hang on! Don't they get the Chinese New Year as well? (On February 10th this year, my virtual spies tell me.)
That's not fair. I want two new years too!
AntarcticPilot
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Yes; it's a 2 for the price of one deal! I'm here for both.
Skellum
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Have you been able to get any sailing in while you are there? RHKYC and HHYC have both got series running from this weekend. I expect ABC will too.
AntarcticPilot
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No, and I probably won't; this is the winter season and I haven't seen many boats (if any) on the water.
Skellum
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It does shut down for a couple of weeks over Christmas and NY, but I gather it all kicks off again tomorrow.
Neeves
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There used to be a race round Lantau Island but I now don't recall if it was at Xmas or New Year. It was 'run' by RHKYC, or they ran the start and each yacht recorded its finish time. It may have been cancelled after the new airport was built. It was an all day race with around 10 participants. We did it twice and came second, to Intrigue, the second time. The original Beau Geste (I think was a Farr 40) won the first time, we were down the rankings. It was a seriously long race, finishes were often in the dark, with serious competition.
The other big race was the CNY to and then from Macau, overnighting in Macau. We used to fire off our out of date flares as we went to the start of the return race (as HK banned the releasing of flares/fireworks). We also stocked up on duty free wine and Madeira - so yachts were a bit laden and the race not quite so serious as there was the issue of hangovers and delicate stomachs after the evening's dinner
The ABC ran races every Sunday, mostly round islands except for the first race of the season, their, or HK's The, Autumn Regatta, which was a large Olympic triangle and had maybe 100 participants. The starts were all off Aberdeen. I think the ABC races stopped for the summer when the Typhoon series run by Hebe Haven took prominence. The Typhoon series was a bit far for us, we lived on Lantau (at the other end of the Territory) but we did the ABC series for a few years and were CHS Champions for the complete series in our final year, '95/'96. I was not very popular as we were not members of the ABC but took home all the glass ware. RHKYC ran a big regatta in The Harbour at the beginning of the season September, with lots of Class racing.
Jonathan
The other big race was the CNY to and then from Macau, overnighting in Macau. We used to fire off our out of date flares as we went to the start of the return race (as HK banned the releasing of flares/fireworks). We also stocked up on duty free wine and Madeira - so yachts were a bit laden and the race not quite so serious as there was the issue of hangovers and delicate stomachs after the evening's dinner
The ABC ran races every Sunday, mostly round islands except for the first race of the season, their, or HK's The, Autumn Regatta, which was a large Olympic triangle and had maybe 100 participants. The starts were all off Aberdeen. I think the ABC races stopped for the summer when the Typhoon series run by Hebe Haven took prominence. The Typhoon series was a bit far for us, we lived on Lantau (at the other end of the Territory) but we did the ABC series for a few years and were CHS Champions for the complete series in our final year, '95/'96. I was not very popular as we were not members of the ABC but took home all the glass ware. RHKYC ran a big regatta in The Harbour at the beginning of the season September, with lots of Class racing.
Jonathan
AntarcticPilot
Well-known member
I think you've just given the other reason I don't worry about sailing too much in Hong Kong - I don't race and am not interested in racing. And I get the impression that sailing in HK is mainly about racing.
Neeves
Well-known member
Racing teaches you how little you know about sail trim and management.
Owners would enjoy the Round the Island (HK itself) as something of a social event. The Macau race, because part of the focus was a meal in a Portuguese Restaurant, owned by a Portuguese owner, drinking decent Portuguese wine (at a slight discount) with your wife and crew's wives. I think the race was a RHKYC event and they took care of all the bureaucracy. All you had to do was enter and then sail there - you did not need to 'race'. Many owners would sail for the weekend to the Sokos, islands at the extreme west of HK and on the edge of the Pearl River at the other side of the Territory, Sai Kung, are a plethora of islands, many uninhabited with safe anchorages. The most challenging race was the RORC races to the Phillipines and they were a vehicle for those without the courage to piggy back a sail 'offshore' with the wife, kids and full Scuba gear - race, what race...? to the Phillipines. Now there are races to Vietnam but after out time.
HK is about 'work' you get little free time and what you do get - how are you going to use it? Visit a mall, every weekend - or - play golf, Rugby (Union) and or Cricket - or....sail
HK, to me was all about the water (the climate was too harsh to climb hills every weekend)
I think you missed out but there again maybe I should have played cricket.
Jonathan
AntarcticPilot
Well-known member
I know the Sai Kung area quite well - my late wife came from Nam Wai, a village in the Sai Kung municipality. And I'm afraid that you won't persuade me to be interested in racing; I go sailing to relax and get away from it all; I am not a social animal either. I'm in Hong Kong because I have strong connections with the Chinese side of things, and I'm sure you're aware that sailing is mainly an expatriate thing in Hong Kong. I have little or no connection with the expatriate community; it's a different world. The nearest I come to that community is that the father of my niece's husband is a senior member of the banking community - but he's Chinese. Chinese who want to go to sea buy motorboats!
If the boat isn't performing as well as she might, that's of little concern to me. I know I can get a bit more out of her if necessary - but I sail single-handed, so things are done for ease, not for speed. If she's easier on the helm but a bit less close-winded and slower if I ease the sheets, that's fine by me. I'm now in my 70s and have to acknowledge that I can't do what I once could!
I'm not denigrating racing - many of the features of my boat were pure racing equipment when I was a youngster - but it's not where my interest lies in sailing. Pottering around the NinePins and the Basalt Islands would be great, and going across to Tung Ping Chau would be a nice day out - I'm a geologist so there's lots to interest me. The Outlying Islands on the west would make interesting cruising grounds too, but I only really know Lamma Island and Cheung Chau well; Lantau I have visited bits of and I'm sure there are plenty of interesting coves on the east. But to do that I'd have to be in sole charge of the boat, and a) It's hard enough keeping a boat in the UK and b) while I'm sure charter operations exist I can't find them and I'm equally sure the prices would be sky-high! My local contacts also tell me that there are quite strict regulations about where you can sail, and I don't have a China Visa; I don't need one and it's a real pain in the neck and expensive getting one! So I would be confined to Hong Kong waters.
Shuggy
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HK was - for me - a chance to walk the many trails at the weekend. Maclehose, Hong Kong, Lantau. I loved going out into the relative wilds after working in Kowloon. And there are some quite big hills out there; Tai Mo Shan would be a Munro if transplanted to the homeland. I was also lucky enough to go cruising on a friend’s Hanse that was subsequently destroyed in a typhoon after being battered on a mooring. Happy days (not the write-off, obviously).
AntarcticPilot
Well-known member
My serious hill-climbing days are behind me - I did quite a bit in my younger days, but although I can climb pretty well, a damaged knee makes descending both hard and sometimes painful with the risk of the knee giving way at a bad moment! But there's plenty of good places to visit that don't require serious climbing. Being a geologist I like the Geopark area in Sai Kung, especially around the eastern dam at High Island reservoir.