On a day where the weather went from bright sunshine to gloomy dark thunderstorms and rain, the Navy’s performance seemed to follow the atmospheric conditions!

The Stanley Warm-up Races are the first event of the season over a shorter distance – ca. 250m, i.e. similar to the main event in Stanley on Tuen Ng Festival. As such it provides a first glimpse of relative performance among different teams. However, other then “Men’s”, “Mixed” and “Women’s” teams, there are no further segregation, meaning that Expat, Chinese, Fishermen, “A” and “B” teams all compete against each other.

Our first heat in Race 6 at 1020hrs was a mixed bag of teams, many of which we’ve never heard of before, but clearly dominated by Chinese paddlers (lighter and often strong) as well as the HK Japanese Club. On a day where every team seemed to jump the start, we were actually comparatively late off the line, but our LiechtenStart proved to be powerful as ever. While boat 3 was quickly ahead and out of contention, we were chugging ahead in second place. However – as often happens on a first race of the day – we seemed to be dropping back some fifty strokes into the race with the Japanese closing the gap in lane 2. Meanwhile, the Castle Peak Power Station team to our right was gaining ground on us and only a frantic spurt to the finish line meant that we narrowly made it home in third position in 1’08’62.

However, that hard-fought third place meant we ended up in a strong group for our second round, facing off against two Fishermen’s teams (you know it’s going to be tough if the team does not have an English name…), AIA Smugs and the Tai O Youth Dragon Boat Team. While race times in dragon boating are notoriously unreliable, we were not comforted by the fact that the first three had finished their initial round in between 59 seconds to 1’01 minute. The Tai O boys seemed the only rival we could realistic beat with a first round time of 1’04’13. To better our chances of success, we lightened our boat by two crew from 18 to 16 paddlers. Although we felt faster and timing was better than in the first round, we were disappointed to find ourselves fifth and last with a time of 1’09’84.

The result put us in the Plate Final against Tai Tam Tigers, Viva Macau, Stanley Mates, Lion Art Dragon and UBS Pacific Blades. The latter seemed a vastly improved boat from last year, having just won their second round encounter.

Meanwhile, the weather had deteriorated significantly with big rain, black clouds, thunderstorms and lighting causing a temporary halt to all racing activities. The weather eventually cleared and we headed out to the starting line for our final race. What ensued causes me great pain to describe and I lack sufficient reason to explain it – but we came last, just behind the UBS boat. Anything else would have been excusable, but this was not. I was too upset to check the times or the final result and only reluctantly accepted the “Fifth Runner-Up” trophy (why bother?) after repeated calls of “LIECHTENSTEIN, LIECHTENSTEIN” from rival teams. I guess if you have a reputation as big as ours, you have to face the crowd even in your darkest moments!

However, the Navy being what it is, we will leave this sad chapter behind, double our training efforts and focus on the main event ahead. Liechtenstein will prevail – DEEPER, LONGER, HARDER!

P.S. According to the official time keeping, AIA Smugs apparently lost the Gold Cup Final by 1/100 of a second against a local Fishermen’s team. This seemed more like a face saving gesture, given that one of the paddlers on the Chinese team was so upset to be challenged for victory by a “gweilo” team that he broke a paddle in anger soon across the line!