The Liechtenstein Princely Navy has started its 10th season in great style by finishing in an impressive second place of the Men’s Silver Cup at the Stanley Warm-Up Races in difficult and choppy conditions, proving yet again that the Navy is a force to be reckoned with in the 2009 dragon boat calendar.

The day started off under less glorious circumstances, however. Despite it being a beautiful sunny day, a strong southerly wind had been blowing in Stanley all night. As a result, Stanley Main Beach was a complete mess – covered in rubbish, debris and thick layers of seaweed. The Food and Environmental Health Department (FEHD) was at the scene trying to clear up the mess, but the efforts seemed all too little and all too late. Since the Navy has long been campaigning for a clean Stanley Main Beach, the Admiral and crew immediately pitched in to clean the sector in front of its base camp.

The other issue was the strong wind and choppy seas, which resulted in a two hour delay of the race start and a decision by the organizers to cut crew numbers from the regular 18 paddlers to 14 only. This meant that the Admiralty was forced to make some tough decisions in crew selection, given a strong line-up of 23 paddlers at its disposal. Due consideration had to be given to training attendance, technical skills, seniority and weight distribution while at the same ensuring all attending crew would get to race at least once in three heats. In the end, a sensible balance was found and all Sailors accepted the Admiralty’s decisions gracefully – a very positive sign of the Liechtenstein team spirit!

The Navy’s first heat, originally scheduled for 1020hrs eventually got under way at around noon. The luck of the draw had us in lane 3 among a mixed bag of local Chinese teams, a Macau outfit and old arch rivals UBS Blazing Paddles. Due to the very choppy conditions, teams were paddling out backwards into the starting slot. Unfortunately, our helmsman missed the stern rope and the Navy cruiser immediately drifted off course, forcing us to make a huge detour back into starting position. It also meant that we could not perform a test start on the way out, an exercise designed to get “the shitty one” out of the way. As a result, we had “the shitty one” at the actual start. Some crews were caught off guard and our first three strokes felt weak and without traction. Fortunately, our chug piece put us back into contention and we locked it down for the short, 50 stroke sprint to the finish. Macau came first in 1.05.00 but to our great dismay, UBS beat us to second in 1.06.40 versus 1.07.28 for the Navy in third.

This was an important wake-up call and that’s of course what these early races are exactly good for (it should be called the Stanley Wake Up Race)! Lieutenant Charlie Riding, Chief Racing Officer of the Navy, did not mince his words in the post race debrief, making it clear that everybody must get on top of his game, from the Chief Focus Officer to every Sailor on deck.

Strategically it was not a problems, since a third place still put us into the “upper half”, i.e. into the semi finals for the Gold, Silver and Plate Finals, where we found ourselves in the company of some strong local competition, including the yellow boys of the Federation of Dragon Boat and Watersport which went on to eventually win the Gold Cup. Learning from earlier mistakes, things went smoother this time as we moved into starting slot without much trouble. But when we performed our start with Liechtenstein honesty (i.e. on the hooter) our local rivals seemed a bit more flexible in their ethics and we found ourselves immediately a stroke behind. Nevertheless, the race was tight and we battled with the Marine Police team for third place, which they eventually grabbed in 1.06.28 over our 1.06.85.

Again, strategically it didn’t matter as both third and fourth place went into the Silver Cup Final. And while the Navy was slowly climbing up the rankings, we were pleased to see that UBS was heading down, making it only into the Plate (where they eventually came fourth).

The Silver Cup final is the second last race of the day and given the delay in race proceedings it turned into a beautiful sunset cruise. The wind had also settled down sufficiently to allow the organizers to increase the paddler capacity from 14 to 16 shortly before the final. Lieutenant Charlie reminded all Sailors that ‘anything can happen in a final’ and added some clear and simple instructions to the crew: 1) nail the start and 2) enjoy the race and leave nothing behind. And, oh boy, we did! The start was a masterpiece straight from the Liechtenstein Museum of Performing Martial Arts – well timed, deep and powerful. At 20 strokes into the chug, Sailorette Hiko – on her first season as drummer for the Navy during the pregnant absence of Commander Mei – came down hard on the drum. By 30 strokes she started shouting crucial words of encouragements which by 40 turned into a whirlwind of Japanese abuse which kicked the boat into extra gear for the sprint to the line. With our boat in the far left lane, right hand Sailors had no visual idea of our position in the race and only heard a quick succession of “toots “ as we crossed the line in just over 50 strokes. Looking across to the right, it became amazingly clear that we had left all the local boats (Marine Police, Stanley Fishermen, Seawave and Lulu) in our wake and the fight was only with CSAV Lions – a boat consisting mostly of elite HKIPC paddlers.

CSAV Lions won the silver cup in 1.03.97 but the Navy claimed a fantastic second place in 1.04.81. Indeed – anything can happen in a final!