Sun Hung Kai & Co. Around the Island Race 2025
by Vivian Ngan 15 Dec 10:42 UTC
13 December 2025
Hong Kong's largest sailing event, the Sun Hung Kai & Co. Around the Island Race, took place on Saturday, 13 December with 230 boats taking on the iconic 26nm circumnavigation of Hong Kong Island.
This epic challenge showcased the city's vibrant sailing scene against a backdrop of glittering skyscrapers and rolling green hills - a truly unique way to experience Hong Kong's stunning coastline.
This year's fleet was as diverse as ever, featuring seven one-design classes, high-performance sportsboats, catamarans, luxurious cruising yachts, and even the beautifully restored wooden classic So Fong, built in Hong Kong in 1937. The race offered a breathtaking panorama of sails sweeping across Victoria Harbour and beyond.
Adding to the excitement, the event attracted world-class talent, including Olympians Nicolas Halliday and Stephanie Norton racing on the VX One F.A.B., and Paris Olympians Ma Kwan Ching and Cheng Ching Yin competing in the iQFOiL division, delivering high-speed foiling thrills to this legendary long-distance race.
The international flavour was unmistakable, with 12 boats from the Chinese Mainland joining the fleet and seasoned sailors flying in from around the globe - further cementing Hong Kong's reputation as Asia's premier yacht racing hub.
Race Officer David Norton set two start lines off the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club's Kellett Island Clubhouse, with the line closest to Kellett Island used for starting the day for one-design boats and the outside line for PHS, IRC, and beach cat divisions. The first start sounded at 0830hrs for the Pandoras and PHS Monohulls in a fluctuating easterly breeze of 5 to 13kts. The final start featured the fast fleet, including three TP52s and the R/P 75 Jelik, at 1100hrs.
The fleet ranged from the largest yacht, Frank Pong's Jelik, to the smallest—12 iQFOiL windsurfers, adding a spectacular foiling dimension to the race. Conditions were highly variable, with patchy easterly winds between 3 and 14kts across the course.
Although a cold front was forecast to bring a fresh northerly breeze of up to 20kts, sailors dressed for brisk conditions were instead met with softening easterlies after the start, resulting in challenging, inconsistent winds across the racetrack.
The fleet worked its way up the starboard side of Hong Kong Harbour, navigating exclusion zones and busy marine traffic before squeezing through the Lei Yue Mun Gap, where the first major park-up occurred as boats compressed in the narrow channel.
Downwind toward Shek O, competitors finally found the fresh air they had been waiting for—a spectacular sight with hundreds of colourful spinnakers lighting up the horizon. After rounding Cape D'Aguilar, the breeze built slightly, although tricky holes persisted off Ap Lei Chau and Cyberport, demanding constant tactical adjustments. By around 1400hrs, a steady northerly filled in, propelling most of the fleet back toward the harbour to complete the full course.
RO David Norton commented: " we came with quite high expectations of having a race all the way around Hong Kong Island. However, during the starting sequence, we noticed some wind holes, and it turned out that most of the boats got stuck at Lei Yue Mun for a while. When we looked at the conditions in the harbour, where there was no wind, we came very close to shortening the race. As we were motoring back to Green Island to set up the shortened course, the wind filled in behind us, allowing most of the fleet to complete the full circumnavigation."
The first multihull to complete the circumnavigation was Philip Sohmen's M32 Chinaone.Ningbo, finishing at 14:28:33, followed closely by the monohull line honours winner, Frank Pong's R/P 75 Jelik, finishing at 14:34:21, less than six minutes behind the leading multihull.
At the end, Noel Chan's TP52 Rampage 88 finished 4 minutes behind Jelik, taking the ATI overall win for the fourth year in a row. Another TP52, Nie Hua /Jonathan Rakkine's Happy Go took second place overall, and Jelik took third overall.
In the PHS division, Chris Mang's Valuable was the overall winner, Kevin Kwan's Dolphin Six took 2nd place, and Sarah took PHS 3rd place overall.
Norton added, "It's great to see the windsurfers back again, and I think it's a really good day. We have the first embodiment of yacht tourism and Greater Bay Area cooperation by having the Around the Island Race combined with the China Cup, with visiting boats benefitting from new facilities supported by the government and the Playground Association to moor some boats for our event. That's wonderful."