The first race on the Hong Kong dragon boat calendar was mixed bag of highs and lows for the Liechtenstein Princely Navy. On the plus side, the Navy has improved significantly from last year and we won our first 500m heat of the season (and only the second since our first victory in Sha Tin in 2004). However, we were not yet as competitive as we would have wished to be.

The Deep Water Bay race is a highly competitive event over a distance of 500m and provides a testing ground early in the season. The event attracts top Chinese and Expat teams that are keen to test their skills against local rivals after a long pause in racing since last July.

Given the Navy’s less than stellar performance record over 500m and the fact that we will compete in a total of four events over that distance in 2007 meant that our training program had been increasingly geared towards building endurance for this longer distance. Also, our performance at the 500m races in Boracay (in similar boats) made us feel optimistic about the prospects for Deep Water Bay.

The luck of the draw put the Navy into a strong group of fishermen teams as well as the ever competitive Fire Services Dragon Boat team – a winner here two years ago. On the advice of CTA Charlie, we had amended our ‘LiechtenStart’ to forego our fast 10 paddling strokes in favor of a straight “ready-and-reach” into a long chug piece of close to two and a half minutes. As the starter’s horn sounded the first heat we executed a decent start and settled into a consistent chug down the course. Two of the fishermen teams and the firemen charged ahead immediately, finishing the race between 2:05 and 2:09 minutes among the three. The Navy was left to battle it out against the Mad Paddlers which we promptly beaten to 4th place in 2:26 (vs. 2:37). Not coming last was clearly a victory here!

The repechage was a three-boat race against the HK Japanese Club and HKUST Alumni. While the latter was less of a worry, the Japanese are always competitive (and light!) and we had lost against them on a few occasions previously. However, our times from the first heat showed that we were the fastest of the three and our strategy was thus very simple (just do the same) and our goal very clear (to win this race!). And win we did – in a hard-fought battle where Liechtenstein was always ahead but with the constant risk of dropping into a hole before the finish line. But there was no hole and the crew soaked up the pressure beautifully, charging ahead to our first 500m victory in a competitive race in three years!

This result put the Navy back in the semi-finals for the Cup, Plate or Bowl finals, rather than being relegated to the Major or Minor Tail (where we ended up third last in 2006). But that’s where the good news ends.

Following a short lunch break at the hopelessly disorganized Uno Beach Café, we line up as the slowest of six teams for the semis. We were also down two crew members and thus raced with a substitute and a borrowed Buzz paddler. Lining up for the start took much longer than in the morning and some of the concentration seemed to have been lost there. While a classification for the Bowl Final was most likely we would have preferred not to finish last – but we did.

Our attention thus shifted to the Bowl Final where amongst others we encountered our old foes, the Tai Tam Tigers. They had qualified for the semi-finals without going through the repechage (i.e. they were a race fresher!) and their times were better than ours throughout the day. Nevertheless, we believed that the Liechtenstein spirit would help us to overcome the odds and finish in a respectable position – ahead of the Tigers. Despite having regained our full crew, the race was far from beautiful: timing was out of synch, left and right were out of tune and before we knew it we washed up last.

There was an eerie silence on the boat – speaking volumes about the disappointment and unfulfilled expectations of all Sailors. However, it’s early days in the season and the Liechtenstein spirit will prevail. We will build on our success and learn from our failure. By our calculation, we finished 16th out of 26 men’s teams – definitely an improvement from third last!

And talking of the Liechtenstein spirit – it certainly lifted quickly as the chilled Foster’s was finally brought out and our massive inflatable Foster’s can was unveiled to the world! We may not win every race on the calendar, but we won’t let a bad result get in the way of a good party!

Rock on, Liechtenstein!

Official Results