Big screens at the race village in Central to view the action and the chance to get 'up close and personal' with big names in sailing such as New Zealanders Sir Russell Coutts, Dean Barker and Gavin Brady are just part of what the world series could bring to Hong Kong as the city becomes the backdrop for the match-racing spectacular.
Match racing is a rapidly growing style of yachting competition, increasing in popularity throughout the region with the Korea Match Cup and the Monsoon Cup in Malaysia.
A match race is a head-to-head showdown between two boats and differs from fleet racing in rules and in tactics. With a fleet, the winning boat is generally the one that finds the fastest way around the course. In contrast, match racers will concentrate on just crossing the line before their opponent.
Most match racing is between one-design boats, which should perform identically on all points of sail. Any differences in performance come down to crew work.
For the world series, crews will be taken from the race village to the harbour course and given a different boat each day.
'Every day, crews will be assigned a different boat, so the racing is fair,' said yacht club commodore Warwick Downes. 'The boats were used at the last America's Cup. Two are Team New Zealand boats and two are BMW Oracle boats. All four boats have been equalised to make the sailing more even. There will be between four to six races a day.