SCOTT Duncanson's Raimon Land The Heights has won first place in the King's Cup overall series result with eight points.

In second place was Kenchi Takahashi's Motor Net ahead of Morten Jakobsen's Emma Mathilde Ji-Zip, who won Saturday's race on handicap.

Ray Roberts and the Quantum Racing team snatched victory from Neil Pryde on Hi Fi followed by Island Fling to win the final race and the Racing class title.

Thalassa skippered by Oleg Krasnoperov won the Ocean Rover Class with Maquarie Frangipani Girl and skipper David Ross first in the Premier class

WINNING is never entirely easy but the final day of racing in last year's Phuket King's Cup was effortless for Scott Duncanson and his crew.

Having already racked up enough points to secure a top-place finish, they retired from the race early and let the rest of the sports boat class battle it out for second and third spots.

Duncanson's not-so-secret weapon in his quest for victory is his Phuket 8, which was designed by his father John, an award-winning yacht designer based in Adelaide.

Scott also played a large role in the design and building of the Phuket 8, constructed by local boat builder Latitude 8 Yachting.

Phuket's balmy breezes are often ideal for racing, but sailors can get caught trying to keep their craft at race-worthy speeds in the light and variable winds that commonly brush across the Andaman Sea.

Mastering these wind conditions often makes the difference between who stands on the podium at the end of the race and who goes home empty-handed.

The Phuket 8 was crafted especially to power through such conditions, being lightweight with an extra-narrow water line beam.

A review of the Phuket 8 posted online describes the boat as ''singeing the butt hairs off pretty well everyone, soaring through fleets on downwind legs as though the other boats were docked.''

And when you are done with sailing it, you can simply fold it up, load it onto a trailer, and haul it back home.

Duncanson, who has lived in Thailand since 1991, has emerged as the master of both the Phuket 8 and another sports boat designed especially for sailing in Thailand, the Platu.

Though designed and built in by Farr Yacht Design in New Zealand, the Platu was made for racing in Thailand. The name comes from an exceptionally oily type of mackerel called, in Thai, plaa thoo.

Duncanson's adventures on the Platu has taken him all over Thailand and around the world.

He has held a national racing title for Thailand, and last month he was invited to join the New Zealand Platu Championship, a new one-class sailing race that attracted many top competitors including Olympic medallists and current world champions.

Duncanson's crew, honored to have been invited to race among such greats, made an unexpected seventh-place finish in the gold fleet.

They did so well because ''we had three days of sub-20 knot wind conditions, like what we get in Thailand,'' says Duncanson.

Like his father John, an award-winning yacht designer, Scott had a knack for developing boats and designed and built his own 25ft junior offshore racer, on which he emerged as world champion of that class in 1988.

A few years after being named South Australian Yachtsman of the Year, Duncanson moved to Pattaya to run a boat building business.

Though he has since left the business, yachting remains very much a part of his life and he is still a fierce competitor.

As a former world champion, Duncanson surely belongs among the elite in sailing. But if he had his way, sailing in Thailand would be more open to sailors of all levels of income and ability.

''To bring boating to the masses you need a good hardstand area because boats in the 5-7 metre range need to be kept out of the water,'' he says.

For King's Cup, Duncanson and other sportsboat racers have to launch off an area near Chalong Pier.

Even though Phuket has a thriving and expanding marina business, there is yet to be one built with launching facilities for boats such as the Phuket 8. All Phuket marinas are focussed on providing mooring for bigger boats, he says.

Duncanson, who now lives in Phuket and works for a property services company, is a common fixture on the Phuket sailing scene, but many of his battles take place in the Gulf of Thailand, which has more sailing competitions and facilities aimed at smaller craft.

''King's Cup is a big keelboat event, so there's not a lot of Thais,'' says Duncanson. ''It's expensive to get boats here.''

Bringing sailing to the masses is not a new idea in Thailand. Indeed, HM The King Bhumibol Adulyadej, an avid sailor, in his younger years designed and built several models of smaller yachting craft, including three in the Moth class called Mod, Super Mod and Micro Mod.

His designs are still being used in racing today.



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