We seem to be spending more time aboard OPB's (other people's boats) than our own during the past 6 months. Not that we would ever race our lovely but languid Dreamcatcher.

At Christmas, we did a 50 mile race on FreeLoader from Rockingham to Fremantle and back, with local Perth friends.

In both January and February, we raced on the good ship Rusalka, based in Phuket Thailand. January was our first Langkawi (Malaysia) regatta: 5 days of racing in robust conditions in and around Bass Harbour in lovely Langkawi. We had a few scary moments with the spinnaker but generally didn't break anything or log any injuries. These races saw us back at the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club each night, in time to spruce up for the evening's festivities at different locations. Both the starting and finishing party were at the yacht club, and fantastic. Other venues were the Bella Vista hotel and the W Hotel, the latter of which was stunning.... and a chance for the girls to get out of grotty yachtie mode, and dress up a bit. We did well in the regatta, gaining an overall 3rd place.

In February we raced our 7th Phang Nga Bay regatta! With the "usual suspects" though one of our regular crew stepped out due to hip issues and we added a hot shot foredeck man. This regatta is and always will be our favourite! Starting at the north-eastern end of Phuket, it consists of 4 days of racing in a large and scenic route around Phang Nga Bay, down to Phi Phi Island and scenic spots in between. We anchored each night after the race, swam, cocktailed then dinghied or long-tailed across to the shore and partied with other sailors. This regatta is really all about sailing between parties! We did really well, had good winds for the most part (except one 2 hour "hole" when we thought the keel had grown roots into the seabed!) and were delighted to take off 2nd prize overall in the regatta.

These Asian regattas are incredibly fun and well supported. Tiger Beer was gushing every night, along with wine, rum and gin - no-one ever complains of "not enough to drink"!

As usual, the handicap systems were the main discussion point. These two regattas used the Performance Handicap system, where the handicap changes each day depending on your prior day's performance.... so, the better you do, the more time you have to give your competitors in the next race. Not perfect, but it does give all boats a fair go at the trophies, unlike the traditional handicap systems which tend to see the same place-getters up on the podium time after time.

So, we now revert to taking care of our Dreamcatcher, with plans to sail her up to Tioman, Redang and beyond as soon as the monsoon switches over.

The picture is of Rusalka leaving Phi Phi Don: the guy in blue at the mast is Henry....