Yachting: Kiwi living kickstarted Korean sailing

Kim Dong Young studied in New Zealand. Photo / Supplied

The korea Match Cup must be one of the unlikeliest sporting events in the world.

Now established as one of the benchmark regattas on yachting's World Match Racing Tour, the story of how it came to be - with a strong New Zealand involvement - is a tale of belief and persistence against the odds.

It is held just 50km from the North Korean border, in a country with an almost non-existent sailing culture. Yet over the course of this past week nearly 300,000 spectators have come to watch the action, and around $9 million is poured into the event and the accompanying boat show.

For event promoter Kim Dong Young, the dream started 11 years ago. Living in New Zealand with his family, he was captivated by the 2000 America's Cup on Auckland's harbour. After he completed a boat building course at Unitec and a subsequent apprenticeship with Sensation Yachts, Young returned to his homeland with a goal of creating the first professional sailing event in Korea.

Former New Zealand America's Cup sailor Peter Lester became a confidant and introduced Young to insiders in the sailing world. The ambitious Korean visited Valencia three times during 2007, as well ports on the Volvo Ocean race and most venues on the WMRT.

"I travelled so much," joked Young, "people began to call me Mr Everywhere."

Back in Korea, he attempted to sell his vision to the governor of Gyeonggi, a province of 12 million people outside Seoul also home to Samsung electronics, a large LG plant and the R & D centre for Hyundai and Kia Motors.

Korea had long been one of the world leaders in the heavy marine field with a stated aim to develop a leisure marine industry. Young's event, together with a boat show, dovetailed nicely with that goal.

"They had no idea what sailing was," says Young. "But I showed them how this event could be a tool."

The green light was just the beginning, though. There is only one sail maker in Korea and no mast maker nor rig manufacturer. All of the sails and other componentry came from New Zealand, where the boats were also designed. Even today, four years after the first event in 2008, boats are still sent overseas for maintenance before and after each event and most of the rope for the rigging is still brought in from New Zealand. In 2008, the chosen venue at Jeongok was just a fishing harbour next to an estuary. But what was a muddy riverbank now houses a huge infrastructure, with a marina area, a large pier and a VIP area.

"It will always be a challenge here," says Lester. "But what they have achieved in just four years is nothing short of remarkable."

At times, the course can be extremely compressed - Lester compares it to racing inside the Westhaven Marina - but the action is spectacular as the pier overlooks the course and spectators are metres from the action.

The tides can be up to eight metres and on Thursday four boats ran aground during races, causing a re-sail. There was even the comical sight of Italian Francesco Bruni sailing to the edges of the course in an attempt to catch the mud and force a restart when he trailed by a fair distance in one race.

At low tides, competitors can also get tangled up in the large network of ropes strung across the bottom of the sea floor that fishermen use to set their anchors, while there are fish pots and moorings strewn across the mud. On several occasions during the week, fishing trawlers would attempt to cut across the course, before being intercepted by marshals.