The crew

The crew are drawn from a list of roughly 30 sailors, all of whom are amateurs and hold full-time professional jobs in Hong Kong, and are active in the Etchell and other classes of racing in Hong Kong. Due to professional commitments, each of them cannot spend as much time as they would like on sailing EFG Bank Mandrake, resulting in a rotation of crew for the various regattas.

Nick Burns - Skipper

Nick Burns, was educated in Sussex and Cambridge in England, qualifying as an Architect, and has worked in Hong Kong for 40 years, looking after the P&T Group Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern offices.

He started competitive sailing in 1969 in the warm waters of Thailand in Firebolts and was immediately addicted. Thereafter, he spent 22 years of helming Dragons in Hong Kong with a change to Etchells 22 in 1992, which he now races all year in Hong Kong, and in the occasional World Championship.

Big boat sailing started for him with the King’s Cup in 1989, sailing on Buzzard, a Rob Hunter design 41 footer, which consistently won the Cup for the next 4 years. Thereafter, Big Buzzard, Stella and Mandrake, in the King’s Cup and other Southeast Asian venues of the Asian Circuit..

For 20 years he has specialised in mainsail trim and in the last 5 years added helming larger racing boats to his skills.

Although based in Hong Kong, much of his sailing is done in Southeast Asia on EFG Bank Mandrake and Etchells, but he also competes regularly in Etchells and Dragon International Regattas, and other more remote IRC series in Antigua, Cowes, Cork, and New York.

Fred Kinmonth - Skipper

Fred Kinmonth was educated in England, qualifying as a solicitor in England in 1974 and in Hong Kong in 1982 and has worked in Hong Kong since 1984 both as a solicitor and an investment banker.

He learnt to sail as a boy on Hickling Broad in Norfolk and Pitsford Reservoir in Northampton, England, and in Baltimore, Co. Cork in Ireland, sailing GP14s and Fireballs with his father and then sailing 505s in the UK for many years. As a student, he crewed in a Flying Dutchman for three years in an unsuccessful attempt to qualify for the Olympics and represented Birmingham University in inter-varsity team racing. When he arrived in Hong Kong he brought with him a new Flying Fifteen, which he sailed for a number of years and then he moved to the Etchell 22 class, and has sailed Etchells ever since. In the late eighties, he won the 505 Asia Pacific title in Singapore, crewing for Eric Lockeyear. His introduction to big boat racing began when he acquired a Sydney 38, "Stella" in the late 1990's, winning the Lipton Trophy twice, and then Mandrake (in partnership with Nick Burns) in [2004], winning the Lipton Trophy once.

Most of Fred's sailing is done in Asia, both in Hong Kong and around the Asian Yachting circuit, but he has cruised extensively in the UK and Ireland and has sailed in big boat and dinghy regattas in Antigua, Cork, Cowes and elsewhere in Europe.