THE year 2015 was a banner year for Philippine sailing team and its major sponsor.
The Philippine men’s sailing team, helmed by top class sailor Ridgely Balladares and managed by Standard Insurance computer engineer Richly Magsanay and sailor Rommel Chavez took home the country’s first Southeast Asian Games sailing gold in a decade.
The trio, who are with the Centennial III sailing team, have helped to earn the Philippines its 29th gold medal overall at the just concluded SEA Games in Singapore.
Philippine Sailing Association president Judes Echauz disclosed that the team improved on the 2013 SEA Games silver finish and the gold win was the Philippines’ first at the games since they hosted the biennial event in 2005.
With Balladares, Magsanay and Chavez, Standard Insurance Centennial III also swept last year’s Commodore’s Cup Regatta at the Subic Bay Freeport Zone.
Commodores’ Cup Regatta is one of the 12 prestigious regattas of the Asian Yachting Grand Prix championship that determines the Asian Yachting Skipper and Yacht of the Year (all of which are of international standards, comparable with the most popular sailing circuits in the world).
Every year, since 1962, international yachtsmen and women have pitted themselves against the cold rough seas off Hong Kong at the start of the race, and the languid, sun-drenched slope of the windless days off the coast of the Philippines.
Subic Bay hosts 2 out of 12 races from the Asian Yachting Grand Prix Centennial III also bagged the overall title in an international race in the combined Subic to Boracay Race and Boracay Cup Regatta 2015 in Malay, Aklan, after several second-place finishes in the past.
TP 52 Davidson-designed Centennial III, with its 16 crew, scored the IRC Racing Class with a time 27:37:39, while Frank Pong’s Jelik is a close second with 27:45:06, in March last year, the longest sailing race in the Philippines.
Pong, Asia’s top sailor and 2013 Asian Yachting Grand Prix Skipper of the Year, is one of the leading supporters of sailing in the Philippines.
His donation of new sails for the training boats of the Saturday Afternoon Gentlemen’s Sailing Club Sailing School, in partnership with the PSA, has helped jumpstart the sailing program in Subic.
Centennial III and other winners in the SBBR and the Boracay Cup Regatta have earned precious points in the race for the AY skipper and Yacht of the Year honors.
The race to Boracay and the Boracay Cup are two out of the 12 races which are conducted across Southeast Asia—Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand Hong Kong will host the other events—that award points to the winners.
Around 20 elite local and international sailing teams have took part in the sailing race.
Last September, the Centennial sailing team skippered by Southeast Asia Match Racing gold medalist Balladares, won the championship of the DBS Marina Bay Club match racing on SB40 yachts and participated in by top international teams at the Singapore Marina Bay.
Members of the team were Joel Majarito, Rommel Chavez, Richly Magsanay, Teodorico Asejo and Bernard Floren.
Several athletes being backed by Standard Insurance also excelled in different sports divisions last year.
