37th Phuket King's Cup - Day 3
by Scott Murray 3 Dec 15:25 UTC
29 November - 6 December 2025
37th Phuket King's Cup 2025. Drop, drop, drop. Team Hollywood © Guy Nowell / Phuket King's Cup
Queen Suthida Bajrasudhabimalalakshana jumped on board Vayu THA 72 for the first time this morning during the 37th Phuket King's Cup. The first race was 'in sequence' when the the breeze shifted almost 180 degrees and demanded an AP. After that it was 'up anchor' and let's try this somewhere else. Good call! There was indeed breez further south - enough to get going.
When Simon did find the wind again, about forty minutes later, he sent the IRC Zero, IRC 1 and the Premier classes on course 25, a two-lap windward-leeward course, while sending IRC 2, Bareboat A & B, the Monohull Cruising class and the one multihull racing on course 29, a shorter version of the same course.
The wind held enabling all yachts on course 25 to finish the course but it then began to fizzle out, and Simon ended the bareboat charters and cruising monohull at the leeward mark, while finishing Compass Rose, the multihull, at the first windward mark.
THA 72 Vayu picked up the IRC Zero Class today finishing 00:03:56 ahead of Ray Roberts' Team Hollywood. Steve McConaghy's Aftershock then placed third in the three-boat class, eleven minutes behind Team Hollywood. THA 72 Vayu also collected line honours on the day with an elapsed time of 00:58:36.
The queen is gracing THA 72 Vayu for the third year in a row, and next week she will compete in the SEA Games sailing competition, held off Sattahip. In 1967, at the South East Asia Peninsular Games (the predecessor to the SEA Games), HM King Bhumibol raced on Navarerk, an OK Dinghy he built himself, against his eldest daughter, Thuankramom Ying, Ubolratana Mahidol. She raced dinghy No. 18, which the late King also built. They tied for first place in the OK Dinghy division, sharing the gold medal, which was presented to them by the late HM Queen Sirikit.
Today, the seven-boat IRC 1 class saw Rolf Heemskerk's The Next Factor win on elapsed time and edge Nick Burns' Blitz by 00:02:46 on corrected time. Craig Nichols's Alright, who won this class on the first day of racing, finished in third place, four minutes behind Blitz.
Thailand's Ithinai Yingsiri's Pine Pacific won the prestigious three-boat Premier Class, as it did on race day one, beating Peter Cremers' Shatoosh by 00:06:54 on corrected time, and was also first across the line in the class. Hans Rahmann's Yasooda then finished just over four minutes behind Shatoosh,
The seven-boat IRC class 2 saw Sergei Muskhin's Madame Butterfly and Mati Sepp's RTS-Baltic (Estonia) swap places compared to their finish on race day one as this time Madame Butterfly finished three minutes ahead of RTS-Baltic on corrected time, though Sepp was first over the line with an elapsed time of 01:11:46. Viktor Zakharov's B2 (Getaway Ichi) placed third, just over a minute behind Sepp's crew.
The four-boat Bareboat Charter A class saw Aleksei Brunov's Moonshine first across the finish line, beating Andrei Novikov's Gloria (ARM) by just thirty seconds on corrected time with Feng Chen's Isabella (CHN) then 5m 30s behind Gloria.
The four boats competing in the Bareboat Charter B class saw Takashi Ito's Sariya and fellow Japanese Hideyuki Miyachi's Amigo II swap positions from race day one as this time Sariya finished 25 seconds ahead of Amigo II on elapsed time and 40 seconds ahead on corrected time, when handicaps were applied. Maximillian Soh's (CHN) Piccolo was third, finishing 00:03:1 behind Amigo II.
Eight boats are competing in the monohull cruising class and the beautiful Swan II, skipped by Philippe Dallee, claimed victory today, beating Kirill Stashevsky's Lastochka by 00:01:24 on corrected time. Duan Duan was first over the line on elapsed time in this class (01:01:32), but finished third on corrected time, 00:02:32 behind Lastochka.
Ryan Merrill's Compass Rose is the only boat racing in the multiclass, and the catamaran again raced with cruising monos to give the crew some company on the water.