Phuket King's Cup Regatta | The Phuket Sun

Phuket King’s Cup Regatta

Though chaos reigned at Bangkok’s main airline terminals, this was merely a wind-shift for some 2,000 sailors coming in from 25 countries of the Asia-Pacific and further afield. They come, en masse, to salute the King of Thailand on his 81st birthday, via the 22nd Phuket King’s Cup which will be sailed from Dec 2-6.

Such a huge endeavour as this requires a 12-month management and organizational scheme, to ensure that all the miniscule details are in place come December. So the closure of Bangkok’s main airport was minor an irritation, certainly - but not overwhelming. These astute ladies and gentlemen climbed aboard anything with wheels and bolted for Phuket. leaving these fragile mortals to stake out their territories. Even the press corps and media joined the fray, many taking overnight, 14-hour bus rides, to be in Phuket. One worthy Fourth Estater was heard complaining in the press office that he was bus-lagged!

The Phuket King’s Cup Regatta Committee also answered the call and, for the first time in the two decades of staging this event, decided on just four days of racing, counting today as practice race day and incorporating the traditional Thursday lay-day as regular racing.

The 22nd regatta opened at the host venue, the Kata Beach Resort, and tribute was paid to the ongoing principal sponsor, Raimon Land, which has agreed to underwrite the regatta through 2012.

Given the dire world economic situation, it is amazing and a great tribute to His Majesty the King that so many companies in the public and private sector support this great yachting extravaganza which puts Phuket and Thailand in a most positive ligh; rather good exposure, one could surmise, considering the current unrest. Thailand Elite, Mont Clair, Mom Tri’s Boathouse, Phuket Magazine and Sunsail join numerous media sponsors in promoting this event.

Probably the luckiest of the supporters is Thai Beverage (Chang Beer) whereby the front facade of the Kata beach resort is a tableau of rampaging elephants (in concrete, of course).

Posted by admin on Dec 1st, 2008 and filed under Boating, Local. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response by filling following comment form or trackback to this entry from your site

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