Life.Culture.Discovery.

Sailors and runners show their mettle in Hong Kong’s Four Peaks Race

Happy 40th anniversary to the Four Peaks Race, an exhilarating sailing and running competition drawing athletes of all ages and abilities

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A Four Peaks Race crew member wrestles with one of his yacht’s sails during the race. Photo: Alexander Mak

Published: 5:00am, 1 Mar 2025

On a sunny afternoon this January, south Lantau’s Cheung Sha Beach was quiet, with few people other than a couple sunbathing by the trees, another strolling along the sand. Slowly, a yacht approached from the southeastern horizon and rode the breeze to within a couple of hundred metres from shore. Out dropped an inflatable kayak, then onto that a man and a woman in shorts and T-shirts who began paddling towards the beach. Nearing the shore, the kayak was propelled forward on a wave and tossed into white surf. The woman plunged forwards, still clutching her paddle, as the man managed to stand and steady the kayak. The two recovered and pulled the vessel up onto the beach, jogged along the sand, and disappeared up a flight of steps through the trees.

By then, two men from another yacht were paddling ashore. They, too, lugged their kayak clear of the surf, strode through the soft sand and headed up the steps. Soon, more yachts came into view, bound for the same stretch of beach. All were taking part in one of Asia’s toughest, wackiest feats of endurance, organised by the Aberdeen Boat Club.

Four Peaks Race runners pull their kayak onto Lantau’s Cheung Sha Beach before running up the hill. Photo: Alexander Mak

The annual Four Peaks Race involves sailing a route through southern Hong Kong waters, with halts for crew members to run up and down hills on Lantau, Lamma and Hong Kong islands plus Ma On Shan, above Sai Kung, in the New Territories. The whole race covers about 170km of land and sea, and the peak ascents total some 2,300 metres – roughly akin to dashing up and down a mountain four times the height of Victoria Peak, and mostly along steep winding trails with rough-hewn rock steps, and sometimes in total darkness.

Now 40 years old, the Four Peaks Race was the brainchild of Stephen Davies, a British ex-Marine who arrived in Hong Kong during the late 1970s. Davies drew his inspiration from Britain’s Three Peaks Yacht Race, but decided the course should be completed within a weekend rather than a week. As a member of the Aberdeen Boat Club, he set about persuading the sailing committee that the idea wasn’t barking mad and he wouldn’t be the only idiot who would be interested.

Four Peaks Race runners need to kayak from the sailboat to the beach before they start running. Photo: Alexander Mak

“I don’t think most of them ever agreed that sailing a few hours to a landing point near a mountain, running up and down it in any condition that prevailed – dark, light, foggy, wet, cold, hot, whatever – then sailing a few hours to repeat … and then repeat … and then repeat, was anything other than demented,” Davies recalls in an email. “But the committee eventually agreed to back it, provided I did all the work and the costs to the club were minimal.”

The club agreed to provide HK$500 to subsidise expenses, and Davies set about typing and copying race rules and entry forms. He was pleased to attract 15 entries, including from highly competitive sailor Keith Jacobs, who hired a helicopter to preemptively check out the peaks and the course (“Keith was a very rich man,” says Davies).