A total of 24 Hobie 16’s, 7 Toppers and 4 Lasers assembled at Taal Lake Yacht Club for this years Buena Vista sponsored annual Round Taal Volcano (RTV) Regatta.  This was probably the largest assembly of Hobies for an event in the Philippines since the Puerto Azul Hobie 14 world championships back in 1984 and demonstrates the growing popularity of this class, in the Philippines. 

Two visiting teams had flown in from the Hong Kong Hobie Club on the Friday afternoon for an evening of Manila entertainment whilst many of the local teams had already gone to Taal the evening before so as to be ready for the 09:00 schedule for the first start. 

It was a fantastic sight to see so many colourful sails rigged and ready for action when race Officer Jerry Rollin gave his skippers briefing at 08:30 Hrs on the Saturday morning. The teams were all chomping at the bit for a weekend's racing and the winds were not to let them down. 

The “Round Taal Volcano (RTV) weekend boasts two sets of prizes, the ““RTV Regatta” series and the “Governors Cup”.  The The overall RTV Regatta series consists of 7 races with points from all being counted towards a team's overall score. 

Its the "Governor's Cup" aspect of this series that makes it unique in the world of yacht racing.  The combined course for the first 2 races, for the Hobies, forms a circumnavigation of the Volcano Island in the middle of Taal Lake, which is itself within a 10 Km diameter volcanic crater. 

The Governors Cup is awarded to the skipper of the boat in the largest class (Hobie 16s) with the fastest accumulated time for these two races. The record of 3 hours and 63 seconds, was set by Luigi Manzi and Charlie Clement in the  very first TVR series back in 1999. It looked likely to be broken if the winds would hold. 

Powered by Amihan winds of 10 15 knots, the Lasers and Toppers set off first with a running start and then a turning mark to take them on a port beam reach over a shorter route to the lunch time stopover around the eastern side of the island. The Toppers form an important part of the fleet, and the class provides a fun avenue for women to get involved in the sport. 
 

5 minutes later, the Hobies set off through a busy running start line to proceed in the opposite direction around the island. After some shouts for water through the start the Hobies quickly fanned out as they were cross gybing downwind chasing the gusts and shifts which spread across the waters. 

 Tong Shing and Evergreen Lee led the fleet past the fish pens to the west although they were closely followed by Luigi Manzi and Elle Singson. Once through the brief light wind zone on the leeward corner of the Island, everyone powered up on twin trapezes. Through it all,these two teams maintained their positions to the lunch time finish line. 

However the first boat to finish, although he had come the other way, was the Laser of Roman Azanza!  He beat the cousins Phil and Joe Hagedorn who had both capsized in their Lasers. Katie Truman lead the Topper fleet to lunch. 

The other side of the island is always a nice stop. Watching the boats come in one by one is a fun sight, and there's plenty of time to catch up on stories with friends who come over just to do this unique annual event. 

After the customary Binalot lunch of rice, pork, an egg and a tomato wrapped in a banana leaf, the teams were ready to go. With the lead Hobies having completed the first 2/3rds of the course in less than 90 minutes the 3 year old record was looking likely to fall. 
 
Again the monohulls set off first, this time with a more common upwind start, and the Hobies were soon chasing them with crew flat out on their trapezes racing hard. All experienced a slight lull passing to windward of Bubuin island but soon that was behind everyone with a fast and furious twin trapezing tight reach with travelers eased back to the finish off the Taal Lake Yacht Clubs foreshore. Tong Shing again lead he field, this time chased hard by the relatively new partnership of Erwin Valdez and Junie Dolina. 

There was time for a third race that afternoon, a sausage triangle race around buoys laid off the clubs beach and Tong Shing scored a third bullet, this time followed by Charlie Clement and Nokie Jaravata as the winds maintained their strength. 

With two leg wins and an overall elapsed time of 2 hours 08 minutes and 36 seconds, the Hong Kong duo of Tong Shing and Evergreen Lee showed their fighting form and clearly issued the message that they were the team to beat out on the water.  However, as the Governors cup was to be awarded... where were they!!???  The trophy Presentation had to be delayed!  The Rugby followers were glued to the tube!! The world championship between the 2 sailing powers,  England and Australia was in 3rd overtime. In the end Tong lost at TV, but he walked away with the Governor's Cup. 

Meanwhile, the non rugby fans watched a pre-release DVD of the Fourth Philippine Hobie Challenge film. All good stuff and there was no shortage of food, San Miguel or Tanduay as the Buena Vista sponsored party went on into the small hours!! 

The following morning the winds were just as strong. 
Another four sausage triangle races were scheduled with a 09:00 start for race number 4. Most made this except Tong Shing and Evergreen who were still launching as the first teams went round the windward mark. Clement and Jaravata pounced on this opportunity and were the only other team to score a bullet in the entire series. 

Tong Shing and Evergreen managed to hold on in race number 6,despite snapping their rudder clean off on the final beat. They went home with the Buena Vista Round Taal Volcano regatta ’03 series A fleet 1st place trophy. 
Charlie Clement and Nokie Jaravata sailed consistently to take second, while third overall was garnered by Mark Haswell and Ana K. Lim. 
 
With quick turnarounds between races 4 races were sailed and completed for the Hobies, Lasers and Toppers before 13:00 Hrs enabling everyone to pack up their boats and change before the awards ceremonies. The Round Taal Volcano regatta is designed as an international event. We provide hot boats to visitors, as well as make sure there is adequate time to get to the airport for the flight home. 
 

The day was not without drama elsewhere as in the last race Luigi Manzi and Elle Singson were T-Boned and they did well to beach their boat before the port hullsank with a 6” ‘T’ in its side letting water in very quickly. They were fortunate on two counts. First, the foam sandwich construction of the Hobie 16 enables the hull to float, even when completely filled with water. 
Second, They had accumulated enough points to win the Masters division. Former Hobie Champion Richard Eyre took second in the Masters. Doctor Dennis Cruz and his crew Jovie Dungo took a well deserved third place in the masters division , behind the above mentioned two champion sailors. 
 

Raul Bulaong and his crew Boy Cedullo placed 6th overall and in winning B fleet, he will now be bumped up into A fleet. 
It would have been nice to award the trophy to Raul and and his regular crew, his wonderful wife Ichay, but unfortunately business called and she was unable to make this “say goodbye to B- fleet" occasion. 
 
Special thanks to Monchu Garcia of RayoMarine for supporting the club through sponsorships. Monchu and Cons Castaneda sailed very well to take second in B fleet. They will probably get kicked out of “B fleet” themselves, at the upcoming National Championships. 

Joe Hagedorn was to win the Laser fleet ahead of Phil Hagedorn and Roman Azanza. Joe and Phil’s efforts at building a strong amateur laser fleet in the Philippines have paid off, and interest in this excellent Olympic class has been growing. Its great to see them here at this annual regatta. 
 

 A regular feature of the RTV Regatta for the past couple of years has been the introduction of a “womens division” in the Topper class. Katie Truman, a teacher at the British School, won the womens title, in a close fight with Carol Pablo, followed by Guen Cerriles. 
 

All the sailors left having had a great weekend of strong wind racing on pristine fresh waters and a big thank you to TLYC commodore Peter Capotosto who loaned his boat to a last minute entrant and instead took the 
photos which accompany this article. For more details on other activities at TLYC please look up http://www.tlyc.com 

This article contributed by Mark Haswell of Dinghy World. mhyc@pacific.net.ph 
Photos and editing Py Peter Capotosto, with special thanks to Noel Lim. 
All images have been drastically reduced, but are available for publication upon request. The average image is a 3mb .jpg file. Yup. 
They are 6 megapixel shots and the pictures you see above are mostly uncroped images!