It was ironic that many feared the waves too calm on the first day of the King?s Cup 2010 considering the devastation and chaos caused by the raging winds and waves on the penultimate night of proceedings.

Around 120 boats and yachts were anchored in the low tide about 300 metres from Kata beach, when the waves hit early Sunday morning, 11 December. Richard Macfarlane, was onboard his Cruiser, Aida and remembers it well.

?It was about 2 o?clock in the morning when I was awoken. The sea was really uncomfortable. The wind rushed in from the west and I saw all the boats around me start to move around. It was pitch black and really quite spooky.?

Mr Macfarlane?s final race in the King?s Cup 2010 was against time itself and turned out to be the most challenging of the regatta. Knowing that he only had a limited amount of time, Richard began frantically unhooking his anchor chain and setting sail before disaster struck, ?I saw a big red boat start to inch back towards me, so I started scrabbling around to get free.?

Although Richard was alone on board, it was his skilled boatmanship and knowledge of the sea that not only saw him get first place in the Cruising Class Series, but also enabled him to escape unscathed.

?Eventually it {red boat} came back and chased me off the mooring. I had to drop the anchor chain and my dinghy so I could get away.?

Mr Macfarlane added that around half of the boats were unattended on the night of the storm and said he believed that if they hadn?t have been, the boat damage and ensuing chaos could have been dramatically reduced.

?I spend half of the year on my boat and live on it, while many owners treat them like toys,? he said.

The wild wind and ferocious waves certainly threw some of the yachts, many of which cost 10 million baht, around like mere playthings.

Simon James, tournament organiser for the racing regatta said, ?We can?t control the sea, in the end everybody worked really hard, including the Thai Navy to get everything sorted.?

Local resident, Tony Pope witnessed the scenes of chaos and was luckily there on Sunday to help Mr Macfarlane retrieve his dinghy, anchor chain and petrol tank and transfer them to Chalong to where he had moored the boat a few hours earlier.

Mr Pope said, ?It was a sad end to such a successful yachting regatta, and also disheartening to see the beautiful and proud yachts in that state.?

Many on the island claim that the stormy weather had been forecast up to two days earlier and debated as to whether the event and races should have been called off, but Mr Macfarlane, like others, said that he was unaware of any such warning, ?A westerly of that nature is very unusual at this type of year.

Normally, if there are winds I can just take up the anchor and leave, but when it?s an event and surrounded by boats, the logistics of doing so are much more difficult.?

Interestingly, three other King?s Cup series winners also suffered damage in the early hours of Sunday morning. Miss Saigon, Ichi Ban and Team Sea Bee were all dragged to Kata beach and lay stranded on the sand. By the evening of 15 December, all boats had been cleared from the beach.

Mr James explained that it was not just a matter of waiting for high tide until the time when all boats could be removed, ?Many of the skippers and owners of the boats were awaiting their insurance firms to make sure everything was in order before they could retrieve the boats, ? he said.

Although an unsatisfying end to the regatta, the Aida and Richard MacFarlane will certainly sail again. ?I?ll be back to take part in the Phang Nga Regatta in February, ? he said, quite confident that he could repeat this year?s success.

Mr James is also adamant that the The King?s Cup 2011 will return and said, ?We {all the necessary parties} will sit down and talk about what has happened and see what we can do in the future.?