The Mui Wo race – held three days prior to the main event in Stanley – was in the Navy schedule as a ‘fire drill’ for the big race. Held over a distance of 300m in fast wooden boats with wooden paddles, conditions were very similar to Stanley – hence an excellent last minute training ground. As the Admiral explained to the crew prior to the race, we didn't really care about the result here, but we cared how we would perform as a team.

We traveled the first time to Mui Wo in 2009, but weather conditions were so atrocious (a trend we have noticed whenever we attend a race for the first time) that the race had to be cancelled – just as we climbed into our boat for the first heat. This year, conditions were near perfect: calm, flat waters and overcast skies, ensuring it wouldn’t get too hot.

Being a predominantly Chinese event, we didn’t really know any of the teams we lined up against in our first heat. Also, the Chinese events don’t muck around much at the start – once everybody is there, it’s “READY!” and “GO!”, pretty much in one shout. Being French and thus not used to such high levels of efficiency, CFO Fred was thus slightly caught out by the first start and so was half of the crew. But sticking to our strategy we were soon back in the race and starting to pull away. Half way down the course the drummer on the boat to our right was pounding the drum so furiously you’d think he was a massive woodpecker on steroids. But all that noise did not distract us from our strategy and after fewer strokes than originally anticipated we pulled across the line in first place with a time of 1:11.34.

Coming first was nice, but even better was the fact that we clearly had room to improve – both at the start and by having a better feel for the length of the course. We also needed to improve our time, because in Mui Wo the combined times from the first two heats determine which final you go into and we had only recorded the 16th fastest time of the 45 men’s team in heat 1.

Lining up for heat 2 against the same four teams we were better prepared for the Chinese-style “READYGO!” start, despite the fact that we had to reposition our boat after drifting sideways at the starting line. We were off in a hurry, executing a standard LiechtenStart and settling into our chug, keeping it long and powerful. Twenty strokes to the drum, another twenty to the power up call and maybe another thirty to the line, which yet again we crossed in first. With a time of 1:11.52 (and thus only 18 hundredth of a second slower than our first heat) we showed a lot of consistency while most other teams recorded significantly slower times in their second heat – likely due to changing currents and tides.

Our combined time from first and second heat was the 10th fastest of this vast field of Chinese teams and we had thus qualified for the Silver Cup (but only after a polite but firm intervention with the organizers who had wrongly accorded the final spot in the Silver Cup final to the Royal X Men, whose combined time was slower than ours (and who were thus relegated to the Gold Plate).

Having said at the outset that we didn’t care about the result, we suddenly cared and obviously wanted to make it three victories in three races. With the tide way out by now we took a long hike to our boat and headed for the starting line. At “READYGO!” all five of us jumped, but some jumped better than us. The yellow boys to our right in particular seemed to have a massive head start, but staying calm and focused we slowly reeled them back in and left them behind for good. Believing in ourselves and sticking to our strategy, we powered up and headed for the line which we crossed in third in 1:12.40.

Third place meant that we came 8th overall (or 6th if you listen to SOF James who argues that only the first three in each final should be counted) which is an excellent achievement and an important morale and confidence booster for our main race of the season – Stanley, here we come!