One of Mumbai's much awaited sailing event, the Tolani Round Robin Fleet Racing Championship, was conducted under the Burgee of the Royal Bombay Yacht Club from 12-13 January 2004.

The championship was introduced way back in 1984 by Dr. N. P. Tolani, Chairman of Tolani Group of Companies to promote the sport in India. Along with the hardcore sailors, the event also attracts quite a few corporate stalwarts such as Mr. Jamshed Godrej and Mr. Kishore Marivala who have both won the event on earlier occasions.

There was an excellent turnout and the organizers, who were initially expecting only 8 entries, had to redesign the draw to accommodate the 10 entries that were received. Among the participants were the reigning Asian Gold & Silver Medalists in the 420 Class as well as National Champions from various classes.

15 Races were sailed over 2 days in J24s & Seabirds. Each team sailed a total of 10 races, 6 in J24s and 4 in Seabirds. The J24 is one of the world's most popular Keelboats and is raced extensively worldwide. This 1977 design was what launched J-Boats Inc. into instant stardom. The Seabird is a Cruising/Racing Gaff Rigged boat designed especially for Bombay Harbour.

Olympian Farokh Tarapore started out as the favourite. His competition was primarily from the 2 Navy Teams. However, no one had it easy as the event format ensured that everyone started out with equal opportunity.

The weather was excellent and provided for exciting racing conditions with a strong breeze and 12+ Knot gusts on the first day.

There was a good atmosphere on the water with seasoned yachtsmen such as, Farokh Tarapore & Cyrus Heerjee sailing against a few new comers to Keelboat racing such as Shahid Basheer, Deepak Vaswani and S Saini. The other skippers in the series were: Nilay Patil, Duleep Acharya, Sandeep Mhatre, Shibani Sachdeva, Amit Arvind.

The course was Windward-Leeward, with boats starting from Mark No:2, beating to Mark No:1, leaving it to port and then running back to Mark No: 2. This cycle was to be repeated twice to complete the race.

All the teams competed intensely with each other and managed to keep the series alive till the very last race. In the end, the results showed how close the racing was. The difference between 1st & 6th place in the Seabird Class was only 2 points. The results in the J24s were equally close, with Farokh Tarapore just beating Amit Arvind to finish 1st.

In conclusion, the event was well organized and wouldn't have been possible without the generosity of the owners of the four J24s used in the event.

Mr. Sunil Lobo from the Colaba Sailing Club also deserves a pat on the back for a job well done. Sunil had managed the Crew Transfers and other organizational tasks with great efficiency during the event. He somehow managed the draconian task of ensuring that each racing crew gets transferred to the correct boat for that race, in time for each start.

Results:

J24:
1. Farokh Tarapore, Kulwant Singh, Utpal More, M Hariharan (CSC)
2. Amit Arvind, SS Chauhan, R Dhulaji & GL Yadav (INWTC)

Seabirds:
1. Amit Arvind, SS Chauhan, R Dhulaji & GL Yadav (INWTC)
2. Farokh Tarapore, Kulwant Singh, Utpal More, M Hariharan (CSC)