The Liechtenstein Princely Navy opens the Foster’s early as we get ejected from the Sha Tin race after the repechage. But a look at the results alone doesn’t tell half the story.

The Navy has not raced in Sha Tin for a number of years and the lovely Shing Mun river actually holds some fond memories for our team as it was the venue for our very first race victory in the semi finals of the 2004 Hong Kong International Dragon Boat Races.

This year we headed to Sha Tin for a 200m small boat race early in the season. The objective was simple: we bring ten of our best guys and line them up against all the major competitors and see where we stand.

The competition in the Men’s Open division (which is the only one we entered) was mostly local, which was obvious from the fact that three out of six teams in our first heat only had Chinese names. One, it turned out, was the mighty Fire Services Department with their famous male drummer in the tight shorts. Another familiar opponent – and good benchmark for us to measure against – was Buzz Dragon A in lane 1 with us in lane 2.

200m is a very short distance and hence we decided to unleash our new LiechtenFast start – details of which are highly confidential and cannot be disclosed on our public website. However, our new secret weapon has not yet been completely perfected and it certainly was no match (yet) for the quick start of the local teams in the far lanes. But we had a close and exciting race with the Buzz which in the end was disqualified because their helmsman was aiding the propulsion of the boat. The same fate befell the CLP A Team in lane 3. With all the cheaters DQed, we ended up in 4th place with a time of 1’01.98. The winning team had finished in 57.84, beating the fire brigade into second place (58.53). This gave some indication of the level of competition in the Open Championship.

Our time was the 5th fastest of all the boats ending of in the repechage, hence not all that bad. But we were up against SSS Team which had clocked in 59.50 in their heat and another Chinese boat with a competitive time. Only the winner of the repechage would progress to the semi finals, hence we had to pull a good race out of the hat, which obviously required a better and sharper start.

But before we had an opportunity to line up at the start we had lost our helmsman which we had hired at great expense. When he finally did show up in the marshalling area he had forgotten his team shirt, which was against the rules. Not wishing to be DQed on a wardrobe issue, some frantic efforts and good cardio exercise by the Admiral eventually produced the shirt and we were good to go.

The repechage was indeed an improvement from the first heat, with paddlers confirming that everything from the start to the transition and the race itself felt better. Our video footage also indicated good timing and race pace. But watching from the shore it was obvious that the SSS Team had a quicker start and was ahead from the very beginning. And although the Navy held its position and didn’t lose ground, we never managed to close the gap. In the end, it was only good enough for third, but we had shaven 1.5 seconds off our previous time (1’00.68). SSS won in 58.56 followed by another Chinese team in 1’00.18.

Thus, our race day was over at 1400hrs! On the plus side, the Foster’s was still chilled from the morning and we could retreat early to a post-race BBQ.

But the result is not all that bad. Our times were competitive and the boat looked and felt good. We just need to get stronger, better and faster, which we will. So back to training and push-ups!