In an excellent demonstration of team work, rhythm and performance, the Liechtenstein Princely Navy achieved its greatest success yet in Stanley – winning more races on a single day than in its entire six-year history. And they were decisive victories too, leaving no doubt as to who is the best Expat ‘B’ Class team in Hong Kong!

The day started off gloomy and rainy. Or, as SOF James poetically put it in his message to fellow crew members:

The morning air is thick, rain thrashing over the bay, the sun nowhere; water is dark, looming…

A strong wind moves the rain to the highlands, below…The forces awake, gathering themselves, their fuel, their weapons of choice. Today, the 1st battle begins…

To stand tall, to fight amongst the greatest force the war will ever see…

The Liechtenstein Princely Navy will rule!!!

After months of intensive training under the command of Chief Technical Advisor Charlie Riding, the objective of the day was clear: to win all three rounds of the Expatriate Men’s B Cup.

With over 180 teams and 50 races through out the day, Stanley is clearly the largest of the many dragon boat races around Hong Kong. Arguably, it is also the most prestigious, certainly among expatriate and corporate teams. It certainly is the most colorful of all races, but equally the most crowded. Getting to and from our base, the HSH Liechtenstein was a major operation and logistical nightmare that seems to be getting worse every year.

Our first race was scheduled at 11:12am against a mixed bag of teams, including arch-rivals UBS Pacific Blades (sometimes announced as “UBS Pacific Bladders”). As team number E8 in row 8, the Admiralty was confident that the Navy would have a good start to the day. To our left was an unpronounceable French boat – Les Deglingueurs – while to our right were The Ark Angels. Once under starter’s orders, there was very clear focus on the boat. All eyes were on our front-right man Charlie, on whose command the power of the Navy was to be unleashed.

“Paddles are ready!”… “Paddles Up”… and “GO!”. On the sound of the gun the 18 Liechtenstein paddles hit the water, pulling hard and deep in the first three strokes and gradually building towards our rapid-fire acceleration strokes, which would leapfrog the Navy ahead of the competition. With half of the field a boat length behind by the time we settled into our race pace, it became a two horse race against UBS. However, even they were more than a boat length behind by the time we crossed the finish line in a blazing time of 1:19.

This decisive victory provided an important boost for team morale – as well as a first trophy and therefore an opportunity to sing the Liechtenstein anthem on the stage.

Back at our base, Chief Galley Officer Stefan was preparing his usual sumptuous lunch of risotto on bratwurst, providing mission-critical nutritional support for the crew. Our DJ Ronnie was also starting to warm up, ensuring the Liechtenstein beat was heard in at least a 500 meter radius.

In a sign of determination and seriousness among all crew, not a single active-duty Sailor was seen making use of his maximum fuel allowance of one Foster’s prior to the finals. In fact, the only Foster’s consumed by any competitor during lunch were by a few invading UBS paddlers, who had abandoned their own boat out of sheer boredom. The Admiralty did not restrict their Foster’s consumption, as it would clearly be to our advantage in the finals.

At 1400hrs the Admiralty announced the 2006 Awards and Promotions. Congratulations to all Sailors concerned.

Prior to round two of the Expat Men’s Cup, the Navy re-assembled on a quiet corner on shore to reflect on our strategy. The focus would be on improving the first three strokes of the “Liechtenstart”, to get more traction out of the boat in the crucial first seconds of the race.

The competition in the second round would clearly be more intense, given that only the leading teams of the first heat would advance to this stage. The Navy was framed by the US Consulate Generals on our right and former arch-rivals HSBC Bank International on our left.

With two sets of boats used throughout the day, we made our way to the staring line as the previous race was about to start. As they took off – some in completely uncoordinated and chaotic fashion – we moved our boat into position. In what felt like an eternity, we were left standing at the starting line for about 10 minutes, waiting for boat number 1 to join the race. Sitting and waiting patiently, we were treated to repeated renditions of “In the Navy” by Village People blasting from the sound system on our junk across the ocean.

As the Anzacs in boat 1 finally joined the starting line-up, it was “Paddles Up!” and “GOOO!”. The start had improved considerably from the first race and the Navy was quickly on its way towards the beach. While the US Consulate Generals may have had a slight advantage at the start, the mighty Americans were slowly but surely dropping behind the powerful Liechtensteinians in a beautiful display of David versus Goliath. They were pushing hard to keep up with the Navy, which meant that they had little left in reserve for the final stretch of the race. As we hit 50 strokes after the starting sequence the command went “POWER UP NOW!” and the Navy went into a powerful sprint to the finish line, which we crossed at least half a boat-length ahead of the United States.

We thus advanced into the Expat Men’s B Cup Final, which we originally had set out to win. While most of the other finalist looked beatable, there was however one potential obstacle: the Boracay Bugsay team of the Philippines. We knew the Bugsay team well from our Operation White Beach to Boracay, where some of their crew actually paddled with the Navy. They are a fit and mean-looking bunch of paddlers who – thanks to living on a beach – have basically been training every single day for the past six months. They obviously should have been competing in the ‘A’ class, but for whatever reason they were signed up in the ‘B’ category. Just like us, they had won each of the previous two rounds. Save for a collision on the water, it was therefore either us or them on the top step of the podium.

The difference in strength (and therefore class of competition), was obvious from the moment the starter’s gun went off. Even with Charlie executing one of his trade mark “Let’s GO” super starts a fraction of a second ahead of the gun and the rest of the crew pulling off a flawless acceleration, the Filipino team was almost a boat length ahead within twenty strokes and soon out of contention. The real race, therefore, was for second place, with several teams breathing down the neck of the Navy, including UBS and Bloomberg. But among them, the Navy remained unbeaten. We powered to the finish line in a fantastic display of timing and raw power with every Sailor giving his absolute everything.

While we fell short of winning the Expat B Cup, we still achieved everything we set out to do. We’ve beaten every team we expected to beat and every Sailor – from front to back – performed absolutely fantastically. We can therefore rightly claim to be best in our class – at least in Hong Kong!

Aside from the racing action, the Liechtenstein Princely Navy won two additional awards: one for ‘Best Team Spirit’ and, more importantly, Best Drummer, which went to our Commander Mei Li – the secret weapon of the Navy. Ironically, Commander Mei wasn’t drumming during most of the races, counting our strokes out loud instead.

As we waited to collect our trophy for our second place finish, local celebrity / movie star / Ferrari wrecker Nicolas Tse arrived on the beach in a huge throng of reporters and photographers. While he was inundated with questions on trivial subjects, such as his latest love interest and whether he would buy a new Ferrari to wreck, our trophy ceremony was unnecessarily delayed. Eventually, the organizer started to hand out trophies on the podium, while Nicolas continued his interviews right in front. As the Navy’s turn came up, we made the best of the situation and sprayed our champagne across the reporters and pretty boy Tse. We also hijacked Nicolas onto the stage and got him to sing “LIECHTENSTEIN, LIECHTENSTEIN, LIECHTENSTEIN” with the assembled media pack covering every angle of our performance. Sure enough we were all over the Chinese newspapers next morning! (See Media Exposure for details.)

With the day’s racing over, we retreated to our junk and finally started working our way through 15 cases of Fosters. DJ Ronnie was spinning the discs hard and fast and the party atmosphere on the boat was better than ever. The celebrations lasted well into the night as we slowly cruised back to Central, entering Hong Kong harbor under marine police patrol – most likely because of the noise level emanating from our boat.

The Admiralty of the Liechtenstein Princely Navy would like to thank all Sailors for their excellent efforts and on a job well done. We would also like to extend our gratitude to Chief Galley Officer Stefan Herzog, Official Photographer Becky Kong and DJ Ronnie who have all worked hard to make this a very memorable day in the history of the Navy.