The starter s gun has not yet fired, but there is mammoth jostling at the starting line as gleaming hulks twist, heave and manoeuvre on the waves to cut each other off. Hoarse screams of abuse bellow over the waves to both successful and failed moves.
Captains desperately balance the seconds before the gun and the metres to the line.
Cross that line before the gun sounds and be damned. Tension and drama run high at the start of yacht races taken as seriously as the annual Phuket King s Cup Regatta. Some competitors, after all, spend hundreds of thousands of US dollars to get their boat and crew prepared, trained and to Phuket for this, the biggest and most prestigious of Asia s yachting events. Inevitably, starting line action is boisterous and abusive, for in the racing class the stakes are high. Gentlemen sailors from across the Asia Pacific region.