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REGIONAL WRAP |
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Fireballs in the First Millennium Regatta
A Tribute to Prince Bira - The forthcoming Fireball World Championship,
to be held at Pattaya for the second time, will be Thailand's
first major regatta of the Millennium and harks back to a golden
age of sailing on the Gulf when Prince Bhirbongse Bhanubandh
reigned supreme.
The International Fireball Association based in the UK has chosen
the Royal Varuna Yacht Club, South Pattaya, as the venue for
the Fireball World Championships to be held in March next year.
Former Royal Varuna Flag Commodore and Fireball enthusiast Lawnin
Crawford has been the catalyst in negotiations to bring this
prestigious event to Thai shores and is now "dusting off" his
ancient craft to join the fray in March.
It was 21 years ago in November/December of 1978 that the late
Prince Birabongse Bhanubandh, as Commodore of the Fireball Association
of Thailand, welcomed participants in the first world yacht-
racing championship ever to come to Thai shores - in fact, to
Asia. That was the Singha Beer Fireball World Championship,
which was held off the Royal Varuna Yacht Club at Kasetsin Beach.
Several container-loads of Fireballs were shipped from the United
Kingdom and elsewhere - fifty craft in all - to the Varuna beachfront
for the event.
The winner of that particularly exciting event was Laurie Smith
who, one could surmise, has 'advanced' a little since those
halcyon days at Pattaya, being now one of the highest-paid yachting
professionals in the competitive world of Whitbreads and America's
Cups.
The (mostly) British competitors who came to Pattaya in 1978,
could scarcely believe that they had just escaped the depths
of a Northern European winter to come to Thailand's sunny shores
and warm waters - to go sailing. It is a scenario that has been
oft-repeated over the two intervening decades, most recently
for the first Topcat World Championships two years ago last
March and won by Royal Thai Navy Lieutenant Vinai Vongtim. Although
Thais have been most successful in regional championships such
as the Southeast Asian and the Asian Games, Vinai's win was
a first ever world yacht racing title for a Thai.
The Fireball was designed by Britain's Peter Milne. However,
his creation was not to be as well known as that of his famous
brother, A.A. Milne who was the author of the adorable "Winnie
the Pooh" story. Milne's (Peter, that is) concept was of a craft
easy to build by amateurs at a relatively low cost, be fast
and exciting to sail. There are some 20,000 worldwide with big
fleets in Thailand at the Sattahip Navy base and at the Royal
Varuna Yacht Club in Pattaya. The Royal Thai Navy, in fact,
has built most of the Fireballs in the Kingdom, using local
timbers. Many of these will be brought to Pattaya to compete
in the Worlds next March.
Prince Bira's Legacy - Unfortunately, wonderful Prince Bira
will not be around to greet the visitors this time, but his
influence on yacht racing in Thailand is still felt, even some
14 years after his death. Prince Bhirabongse Bhanubandh - known
to all simply as 'Bira', or the slightly more formal, Prince
Bira - in his prime, was arguably the Kingdom's greatest sportsman.
When he died in London on December 23, 1985 at the age of 71,
his contributions to the sporting life of the Kingdom were unsurpassed:
a Formula One world champion racing car driver, whose record
established in the UK in 1937 still stands. Pattaya's Bira circuit
is named after him and for many years, the Macao vintage car
rally featured Bira's famous "Romulus".
An Olympic yachtsman (Melbourne, 1956, Rome, 1960 and Munich,
1972), Bira was also a daring and skillful pilot who recorded
one of the first single-handed flights from the UK to Bangkok.
One could say, then, that he reveled in three of the four elements,
which the ancient world believed comprised the universe - earth,
water, air and fire. He mastered the first three, certainly.
But the 'fire' was there too - in the guise of the 'Fire'ball,
the sleek racing craft in which excelled and which he pioneered
and promoted in the Kingdom.
On the 19th of July 1990, Thailand's National Sports Day was
dedicated to Prince Birabongse Bhanubandh - arguably the Kingdom's
greatest sportsman - on the 76th anniversary of his birth. At
the same time, the Yacht Racing Association of Thailand also
instituted the "Prince Bira Memorial Regatta".
His lasting legacy to the sailors of the Pattaya-Jomtien and
Sattahip waters, was a horrendous long-distance race that he
called the "Firebird Trophy" race. The inaugural event, held
in 1970, was designed by Prince Bira solely for the two-person
Fireball. He also sculpted and cast the massive bronze Firebird
Trophy, for he was "fed up", he told me one day, "with winners
walking away with Royal Varuna's permanent trophies and often
not returning them." He made sure that this fate would never
befall his beloved "Firebird", which, weighing in at a mere
200 kg, was not likely to be carried off by a winner.
The time limit was seven hours and the Prince himself won the
inaugural event. The trophy is thus a slice of the history of
yacht racing in Thailand and the "Firebird" is the Fireball
"Hall of Fame": Svend Rom, John Hornett, Hartmut Schneider,
the two Jenses - Kellinghusen and Overgaard - Bob Kennett, Panasarn
Hasdin and, more recently, Anirut Posakrisna and Vinai Vongtim
are all immortalised on the trophy.
Gradually, the Firebird event was phased out; the human race
- or, at least the Fireball sailors thereof - had become "soft".
The race was replaced by the Prince Bira Memorial Regatta in
1990, which Princess Lom, Prince Bira's surviving Royal Consort,
graciously permitted to be made into an open event for all classes
of sailboats.
The Fireball World Championships is a fitting tribute to the
memory of Royal Varuna's beloved sailor, Prince Birabongse Bhanubandh,
who did so much to promote this great and challenging dinghy
in Thailand and, by extension, throughout the region, in the
regattas, such as the Asian Fireball Championships which he
pioneered.
 The
way to the final
Fireballs
in the First Millennium Regatta
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