Jan and I arrived back home from Taiwan on Wednesday morning, 8/10. A good time was had by all. There was more than enough wind, heaps of free Corona beer and plenty of local food. The sailing event was a relatively low-key affair, much as expected, purely a marketing tool to promote the sponsors' products. Having said that, the organisers did a good job trying to keep everyone happy as things got difficult later in the week.

The main problem was that the north east monsoon arrived a week or so earlier than expected and blew away the event after only the first few days. This was unfortunate as the major sponsors, Corona Extra and Land Rover, had their gala days scheduled for later in the week. The Taiwan Land Rover group arrived in a fleet of corporate vehicles and set themselves up in their official marquee on Friday. The Corona Extra people all turned up on Sunday in nine white Suzuki four-wheel drive vehicles decked out in their blue and gold corporate logos. All of the on-shore activities went ahead as planned but there were no sailing events for the people to watch other than a few keen wind-surfers. Needless to say, the organisers had to work hard to keep their sponsors happy, so the non-sailing sailors were left to sort things out for ourselves over the last few days.

Thanks to the generous sponsorship arrangements from Corona Extra and the organisation of the guys from DMI (Destination Marketing International), USD5000.00 prize money was allocated to the OKs for the event. Land Rover provided a number of their vehicles for the use of the organisers and competitors. This allowed all who wished to do so to tour the three main islands which are linked by bridges to form a horseshoe shape "inland sea" location for the sailing area. Maggie and all of her helpers from the Taiwan Tourism Bureau worked tirelessly throughout the week to ensure that all visitors were made to feel welcome at the event. Other sponsors, China Airlines and Uni Air, provided discount travel arrangements whilst HBO and MTV provided media and entertainment support.

We left home on Monday 29/9 and flew out of Sydney to Taipei on a China Airlines flight at 1130. We joined up with Russell Page-Wood from NZ, Julian Bethwaite, the event Race Director, and a couple of other guys from Sydney who went with the 49ers as part of the organisers' support team. Others from the King of Wind group joined us in Taipei and we all stayed overnight at the CKS Airport Hotel before flying to the Penghu Islands early the next morning

My boat was flown to Taiwan by China Airlines earlier the previous week with everything organised by the guys from DMI based in France, for an all up cost of USD600.00. The mast was too long for the China Airlines plane so it had to be flown to Taipei via Hong Kong on a Cathay Pacific passenger flight. Much to my surprise and relief, everything went smoothly and I was reunited with "Dining with the Devil" when all of the boats were transported to Penghu from Taipei by local shipping. Most of the 49ers were sent directly from the Worlds in Spain and other boats, including Bart's and all of the OKs from the UK, were flown in from Europe. Russell's OK was shipped to Taiwan from NZ earlier in the month together with a few 49ers purchased by the event organisers. For the return journey my boat is being shipped home in a container with Russell's and the local 49ers, so hopefully this works out OK too. Time will tell!

The all up cost to competitors and other members of the King of Wind group was 800 Euros per person. This covered accommodation and meals for the duration of the event, air fares and in transit costs. We all stayed at a youth hostel style hotel known as the Penghu Youth Activity Centre. This is located on the foreshore overlooking the sailing course and only about 5 minutes walk from the sailing club. It is a large five storey building of combined traditional Chinese and European castles design which can accommodate 200 people. The room that Jan and I shared had eastern sleeping arrangements, ie. no bed, only mattresses and bedding on the floor, but with excellent en-suite western style bathroom facilities. Each day a western breakfast was served at the hotel, while a locally supplied packed lunch and evening meal, mainly eastern style BBQs, were provided at the sailing club. The "Sailboat Hall" as the club is called on the local tourist map, is a massive concrete structure, as are most of the newer buildings in the area. It is a four level building consisting of a basement boat storage area for club service boats, rubber duckies, etc. and lots of sail-boards. The ground floor has a main club room which was full of sail-board rigs and a couple of other smaller rooms being used as office and storage areas, and change room facilities. The first floor had another large club room where they had the organisers' computers set up and later in the week the official Corona marquee was erected in there as well. The media centre was located in an adjacent smaller room where all of their communication equipment was installed and yet another room was being used for the sponsors' storage area for stocks of Corona beer, T-shirts, caps, banners, etc. More male and female eastern style toilets were also installed on the first floor. The flat roof area is a large observation deck accessed from the main stair well. This is a very functional building. Not all that good looking but it is not going to fall down!

	The Opening Ceremony held from 1900 onwards on Tuesday 30/9 was a major event. It was held in the open forecourt area near the club where a huge MTV stage was set up with full disco light-&-sound equipment equal to anything you would see at a rock concert. The opening act was an eastern drums performance with adults and kids taking it in turns to show us their skills. Then there were speeches from the VIPs, the local dignitaries and sponsors before the sailors were invited up on stage to be introduced on mass to the large audience of locals. This was followed by a closing act consisting of a local squad of costumed acrobatic cheer-leaders. Before and after the formal activities, the disco music blasted away with the professional DJ controlling the proceedings. All very impressive and very, very, loud! We then had an organised BBQ and consumed some of the major sponsor's free Corona beer and got to know our fellow competitors. It proved to be quite an entertaining evening. As for the sailing, this was very much a casual affair. The Race Director's main charter was to ensure the best media coverage for the event and the race courses were set accordingly. We had camera crews at the starts and at the windward mark. There was even a camera-man in the water right at the windward mark to take bow on action shots as the boats rounded the mark. The 49ers sailed windward and return courses whilst the OKs sailed trapezoid courses. The first day was very hot with a light to moderate breeze and the second day was a little fresher around 15 to 18 knots. On both of these days the OKs sailed two races and the 49ers sailed four races. On the third day the breeze was very fresh, around 25 knots so Jan and I went sight-seeing. The 49ers also gave it a miss but some of the other OK guys went sailing and finished another two races. Thereafter the monsoon really kicked in at up to 40 knots day and night and it's probably still blowing. Full reports of the sailing events can be found on the websites www.taiwancoronakingofwind.com and www.okdia.de.
	In the OKs we had 11 entries. Bart Bomans, the current European Champion from Belgium won the event and was much too good for the rest of the fleet. He is very fit and very strong and is probably the bench-mark for the World OK fleet at this time. Bart won each of the six races sailed to win the 2003 OK Asia Pacific Championship. Russell Page-Wood, NZ, was second overall and OKDIA Secretary, Robert Deaves from GBR, third. Fourth was John Ball, GBR, followed by local Taiwan laser sailor, Pan Wei Hua, with Alex Scoles, GBR, 6th. I finished 7th having to count my two DNS scores from day 3, with Audrey (Bart's "coach") from Belgium and Anna, Jason and Tila from the Canary Islands making up the rest of the fleet. Early Saturday morning, 4/10, Bart and Audrey were woken at 0400 by the noise of the wind and went down to the club to check on the boats. The Land Rover marquee had been demolished and with its aluminium framework, was wrapped all around the OKs. The Corona marquee and a few other smaller tents had also been blown down and the whole area looked a little sad when we arrived at the club to clean up the chaos later in the morning. The OKs had been in the less sheltered part of the boat-park so we were lucky that there was no damage to the boats. Needless to say there was no racing on the day but a few wind-surfers braved the conditions and put on a good show. The 49er guys rigged one boat with a smaller rig and tried to conduct a speed trial but they couldn't keep the boat upright and eventually broke some gear. In the evening all of the activities were moved indoors and the locals put on a wonderful dinner of traditional dishes with everything you can possibly imagine. There was plenty of variety and the dishes just kept on coming so everyone was able to enjoy the meal together with more of the major sponsor's free Corona beer.
The Closing Ceremony proceeded as planned the next evening in the open forecourt area adjacent to the club. The MTV was again blasting but the wind was still howling so it was not quite as pleasant as the opening ceremony. However the brass band played on to open up the proceedings, followed by the speeches and the prize giving. Fortunately they restricted this to the first three placegetters in the 49ers and the OKs so it did not go on forever. The organisers had originally intended to call up every competitor one at a time to introduce us all to the crowd but this would have been hopeless given the windy conditions. After this we had Taiwan's answer to Kylie Minogue and her rock band and all of the local kids doing what kids do at pop concerts, gathering around the stage and jumping up and down during the performance. All very impressive but thankfully we were able to drift away as we had to attend the Corona official farewell dinner. This could have been great as they set it up in the open courtyard at our hotel where we were reasonably protected from the wind. The free Corona beer started to flow and we again had a BBQ meal. The Corona girls and the dancing girls put on a bit of a show but then the VIPs departed and the Corona beer dried up. We all sat around for a while wondering what to do as the show fizzled out and the event came to its conclusion.

The next morning we packed up the boats and said farewell to those leaving the island on the day. The rest of us later met up with Barry from DMI and he took us out to dinner at one of the many seafood restaurants in the fishing harbour area of town. This was a good night. The meal was great and it was washed down with some very enjoyable local Taiwan beer. Our last day dragged on a bit as we did not leave the island until late in the afternoon to fly to Taipei to meet up with our 2230 China Airlines flight home to Sydney.

Overall, this was a pretty hectic but mostly enjoyable event. Definitely a different experience, some negatives but much more positives and well worth the effort. It was a great opportunity for the OKs to be seen at a new venue with extensive media coverage. Hopefully we will be invited back again.

Bill Tyler.

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