The Safaricom World Fireball Sailing Championships racing began yesterday at Kilifi with a brisk breeze blowing over a sparkling sea, and a school of dolphins playing around the Committee boat, as if to see what was going on in their waters.

The first six races this week are a warm-up event called International Week, with two races a day from Tuesday to Thursday. In the first two races on Tuesday the British boats established a firm lead, with Howarth / Townend taking first place twice and Wade / Wagstaff taking second place twice.

The second day produced equally fine sailing conditions, with slightly lighter wind in the 3rd race picking up more strongly for the 4th. Two boats (skippered by Vincent Horey and Alex Bale) were over the line at the start of the 3rd and were disqualified for not returning to recross the start line. Malcolm Davies and crew Fiona Jump established a commanding lead and never looked back, winning the 3rd race easily. Horey and Bale made no mistakes in the 4th race and came in the winner, followed in by Howarth and Townend.

The Kenya boats were led by John Trundell and Peter Hime who secured 13th and 10th places in the first two races and then on the Wednesday an excellent 5th in the third race. A fine performance was given by young Kenyans Omar Mbithi and Steve Ogada who improved from 26th in the first race to 18th in the 3rd - it would seem these young men are on the way up!

International week ends with UK sailors in top places

At Kilifi, Kenya the last two races of International Week took place yesterday in light and light/medium winds and bright sunshine. In race 5 much of the fleet was over the line at the start and so after a general recall the black flag went up. This still did not stop the rush to the start and there were still 6 boats across ahead of the gun.

The UK boats confirmed their hold on the event with Wade and Wagstaff winning both races 5 and 6 and Horey and Turner with a 5th and a 3rd. Howarth and Townend's second place in race 5 was sufficient to win them the series, so they headed for the beach ahead of the fleet. Second place in the series were Wade and Wagstaff, with Horey and Turner in 3rd.

The first Kenyan boat was Trundell and Hime who gained 8th and 7th places, and ended International Week in overall 10th position. The first Irish boat was McCarthy and McCusker with two excellent finishes at 3rd and 2nd, ending 5th overall. Young Kenyans Mbithi and Ogada had their best result of the series at 16th in the fifth race - getting faster all the time as they get used to sailing Fireballs!

International Week ended with a prize-giving ceremony at the Mnarani Club beach bar, with prizes for each race, top series places, the top series team, the boat with the first lady on board, and the special prize awarded for the boat which visited the Measurer more often than any other boat (to Cullen and Tillson, with applause). The team element of the event is just an additional fun feature of the event - team racing rules do not apply but racing points are accumulated to give a team score. Each team has a sponsor and most of the teams have received polo shirts from their sponsors to wear. Team Going Places took the Team prize for International Week.

As the week drew to a close preparations were made for the race of traditional local fishing dhows on Friday, with Fireball sailors signing up to crew for the local captains. Thereafter our reporter is told that various local bars and hostelries did good business while tales of the sea were told, but not always believed.

New sailing experience for Fireballers

On Friday the Safaricom World Fireball Championship sailors took a break from their Fireballs and took to the water in craft that they had never tried before - the local traditional fishing boats with lateen sails, which have sailed up and down the East African coast for several hundred years.

Each "ngalawa" or small dhow was under the command of its own captain and Fireball sailors signed up to crew, paying an entry fee to do so. The captain then added one or two more of his own men to make a total of 4 on board.

The boats started on the Mnarani Club beach, and followed a course set by Kenya Worlds jury member Bill Deverell - up wind to the mouth the creek, back towards the Club, across to the north side of the creek, down to the bridge and back to the Club. Once back at the beach the race was still not complete - one of the crew had to run up the beach and drink a Tusker beer before being able to hand in their tally to the race table manned by Sue Deverell and Di Zola.

The winning boat was boat 19 captained by Mohammed Hamza and crewed by two Fireball Kenya sailors who probably should never have been allowed in the same boat, but they found ways of persuading the race table officers to change the boat allocation.. Al Bush and Joachim Bebbington also chose to drink two beers and thus confirm their top placing. Regrettably for the organisers' expenses, the rule book only defined the minimum number of beers, not the maximum, an error that was only spotted when Al and Joachim had already taken advantage of the loophole. Second boat was Omar Hassan with UK crew Steve Kuhl on board, and third was Haji's with Pierre-Yves Robin from France crewing.

Hotel and Kilifi residents could buy sweepstake tickets on the race. The proceeds from the crew entries provided cash prizes for the first three boats, and sweepstake winnings were divided equally between the sweepstake winning ticket and a donation to the Kilifi School for the Deaf, which is one of the local institutions which Mnarani Club supports.