Amazing Thailand – Amazing Liechtenstein! That sums up the Navy’s first mission to Bangkok on the occasion of the King’s Cup KBank Dragon Boat Championships.

It was back at the 2011 International Race in Hong Kong that the Admiralty had established contact with its counterparts at the Royal Thai Navy whose team won the event in style and subsequently invited the Liechtenstein Princely Navy to take part in their event in Bangkok in honor of the King’s 84th birthday. The Admiralty gladly accepted the invitation since we had always wanted to paddle on the pristine waters of the Chao Phraya River. Due to the severe flooding late last year, the race was eventually postponed to this February.

Under Mission Commander Lt Beat Erne the Navy assembled a crack team of 16 highly trained special operation forces while the Royal Thai Navy would provide another two paddlers and a helmsman to ensure a full boat for this joint naval exercise.

Lt Erne led an advance party to Bangkok on Thursday to establish our base at the luxurious Montien Riverside Hotel & Mosquito Farm, overlooking the race venue in the far south of Bangkok – off the map, literally, of the bottom of most tourist maps.

Initial reports from the race venue were promising, as Lt Erne excitedly reported the sighting of a massive Liechtenstein flag alongside the other seven invited nations. Clearly, this was a serious event. Their party also conducted a thorough reconnaissance of appropriate (and not so appropriate) post racing R&R venues.

With the Admiral arriving on Friday noon we proceeded to the team managers meeting and a first training session in a small boat as only half of our crew had arrived by now. Conditions were much better than expected with calm and smooth water, excellent Champion fiberglass boats and carbon paddles provided by the Thai Navy. Safety was also no issue, since all paddlers were required to wear bright pink life vests which had the only adverse effect of obstructing the visuals of our blue/red uniforms. With a helmsman onboard, we headed out on the river and promptly went around in a circle three times before returning to shore to find another helmsman more familiar with the concept of a straight line.

We put in a few practice runs down the race course to get a feel for the distance, which thanks to the current was nowhere near what we would normally expect from a 500m race. On the third run our timing fell apart quite badly, for which Sailor Tom acknowledge blame, which the Admiral misunderstood as him saying “I screwed up!”. In actual fact, he had said “I threw up!”, which he literally did – twice – in mid-race thanks to an overindulgence during the previous night’s reccie. We decided to return the boat to shore.

As the rest of the crew flew in on Friday night, the advance party headed out for dinner and drinks near the hotel, where CPO Marginal Dave had Incident #1 involving a window and him trying – unsuccessfully, it has to be said – to walk through it. Slightly dazed but otherwise alive, we raced him back to the hotel in two Tuk Tuks at speeds normally reserved for departing aircraft.

By Friday morning our crew was complete and ready to depart for an early morning training session and our first heat at around noon. The international division featured eight teams: China (represented by a team from Guangzhou that had no Mainland Chinese on board as far as we could tell but instead a number of HKIPC paddlers), Chinese Taipei, Malaysia (represented by the Royal Malaysian Police), Laos, Macau, Hong Kong (represented by a bunch of twelve year old kids), Thailand (represented by the Royal Thai Navy) and us (represented by a drummer from Liechtenstein and 18 mercenaries from the Greater Commonwealth of Liechtenstein).

There were two heats of four boats, with the winner going straight to the Grand Final and the rest into a repechage from where again only the winner would go to the big final.

We were up against Hong Kong, Laos and Malaysia in the first heat. It was a quick race that Malaysia won in 1:03.71, followed by Laos in 1:04.18, Liechtenstein in 1:09.53 (about a boat length behind) and Hong Kong in 1:20.10. Our post race analysis clearly established that the rating of the winning teams was much quicker than ours and so we decided to experiment with a new strategy for the repechage - shorter, sharper, faster strokes. It was code-named RED BULL LEVEL TWO as the Admiral would double his pre-race intake.

As we boarded the pontoon for the race CPO Marginal Dave had Incident #2, whereby he slipped and fell on the stairs. He boarded the boat bloodied and bruised, but otherwise alive.

Our strategy worked like a dream! We were out of the starting gate like a crazed bull with mad cow disease that had been treated with a combination of Viagra and steroids. Guangzhou and Macau never knew what hit them and were instantly left behind. The HKIPC-powered Guangzhou boat tried to reel us in but never stood a chance. When our drum came in at 40 the bull was given another kick in the backside and we picked up our speed ever more. We flew across the line in clear first and if it wasn’t for that massive pylon of the Rama IX Bridge I suspect we would have paddled on like some yaabaa-drugged lunatics all the way to the Gulf of Thailand.

It was a clear victory and we had just qualified for the Grand Final next to Thailand, Malaysia and Laos! This posed a fresh challenge since due to work and family commitments as well as out of a misguided lack of confidence in our ability to make the final, half of the team was booked on a return flight that left two hours from the Grand Final. But having come this far – plus the fact that the final would be attended by HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn – we couldn’t let our hosts down. We arranged for a Thai Navy escort to take us straight from the finish line to the airport while a small detachment would be left behind to collect the winner’s trophy from Her Royal Highness. At least, that was the plan.

We sent the ‘trophy team’ to attend the protocol training (how to accept the trophy from the Princess and then crawl back on the carpet) while the rest of us returned to base to get changed for the welcome ceremony and have a few celebratory beers on this great achievement.

The welcome ceremony was a large and serious affair, presided over by the CEO of KBank (the main sponsor and at whose headquarters the race was held) and several Admirals and high ranking officers of the Thai Navy. It also involved a beautiful display of the famous Royal Thai barges, which was a special treat. That in turn was followed by a huge outdoor buffet dinner for all competitors, which in turn was followed by the “show” of each international team. We had been briefed in advance that each team would have to provide a five minute performance. Most teams did some sort of dance routine to lukewarm approval from the crowd. Thus, we felt it was important to engage the locals in our performance and hence, after a short thank you speech, we taught them how to pronounce Liechtenstein in Thai (LICK-TEN-STEIN) and launched into our song with full audience participation and approval. If the winner of the race was judged on the “show” we could have collected our trophy right then and there!

Satisfied with our day’s work – and safe in the knowledge that our next race would only be at 5pm the following day – we embarked on a serious tour of nocturnal R&R, details of which are CLASSIFIED, except to say that CPO Marginal Dave had Incident #3 at a rather dark location when the Admiral accidentally stepped on his already injured toe.

Natalie, our lovely local liaison officer, had organized a bus to pick us up at 1400hrs the following day and all crew were accounted for, except the three that had caught an even earlier flight, which required us to borrow a few additional Sailors, which the Royal Thai Navy kindly provided from their youth team despite the obvious conflict of interest of having to paddle against their elite team in the final. It may possibly have been a plot to undermine any potential Liechtenstein challenge to an odds-favorite Thai victory.

With Thailand obviously determined to win in front of their Princess and having already raced against Laos and Malaysia in the first heat, we knew we had to pull something extraordinary out of the hat to keep up with the competition in the final. We therefore decided to activate strategy RED BULL LEVEL THREE. It would involve the usual LiechtenStart with the fast ten strokes and the idea that after the READY AND REACH we would simply keep up the pace of the fast ten until the finish. Simple. And of course, three Red Bulls for the Admiral prior to the start.

We headed out to the starting line where all the twelve boats of the three finals were cruising about in some sort of holding pattern, waiting for the Princess to arrive and take her seat at the finish line. It felt like in the cellar of the Coliseum in Rome with all the gladiators warming up before the great spectacle in front of the Emperor. But actually it was quite pleasant with the sun slowly setting over the river.

Eventually we were told to line up with two minutes to the race. From the moment the hooter went off, it was all a blur for a minute. With the other boats charging ahead, we powered along behind them. With Red Bull and adrenaline flowing in all directions, the Admiral set a pace so frantic he couldn’t keep pace himself. Further back the timing was all over the place. I don’t recall hearing the drum or keeping count, but at some point I had a vision of the Malaysian team slowing down and coming within reach. I tried to pick up the pace, but we were already in a complete frenzy.

We obviously finished fourth and last, but fortunately not by a too embarrassing margin. We came off the boat and eight of us immediately departed for the airport.

In conclusion, we have learned that we can pull off a RED BULL LEVEL TWO, but we clearly need more training for a LEVEL THREE (plus it takes you an entire week to get that stuff back out of your system). Having made the Grand Final and coming fourth out of eight international teams so early in the season is a great achievement and nothing to be ashamed of.

In terms of the event itself, we can safely say that this is one of the best races that we have ever attended. It was a big event with lots of pomp and circumstance, yet it was also simple, fun and uncomplicated. We were looked after really well and everybody was there to have good time. Nobody jumped the start and nobody complained about the fact that we had six locals on the boat for the final. In the contrary, they just laughed at them (although they secretly were jealous of the Navy uniforms the boys got to keep). Add to that the traditional Thai hospitality, great food, warm weather, the Bangkok nightlife and the biggest Liechtenstein flag ever seen and you have the perfect mission! We hope to be back!

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