Liechtentein Princely Navy

15 July 2012: Stanley Short Course Race

Ending the Official 2012 Navy Season in style, the Liechtenstein Princely Navy battle-paddled it out against the Chinese boys at the increasingly competitive Stanley Short Course Race.

With a number of our key paddlers – particularly our front row – already on a well-deserved summer holiday, the Navy showed up in Stanley with a slightly diminished crew and a couple of mercenary replacements. Nevertheless, it gave recently promoted Petty Officer Dan a well-deserved chance at the stroke position and LCDR Erne an opportunity to show his improved fitness and focus skills. They didn’t let us down.

Aside from the Navy, the first heat in the standard boats (18 paddlers) was already an all-Chinese affair. We slotted into lane one next to the Sea School Old Boys whom we’ve been racing neck-to-neck all season. And it was ‘déjà vu’ as the Boys crossed the line in 52.97 with the Navy snapping at their heels in 53.33. Kolinker Group in lane three took an entire minute more (1:52.81) to find the finish line. We recommend that they fire their navigator.

The first heat in the small boats (10 paddlers) was even more spectacular. As the enclosed video illustrates, HSH Liechtenstein powered away nicely in the generally recommended straight-line-to-the-finish direction while competing boats unsuccessfully tried to intercept them from both sides. It led to a well-deserved half boat length victory in 1:05.03 – the fastest time of round one in the Men’s Small Boat Heats.

In the standard boat Cup Semi Finals, the competition was not just Chinese, but also Taiwanese. Two teams didn’t even carry an English name – normally a very worrying sign. It was super tight and super exciting, with the top six boats finishing within 0.6 of a second. The Navy managed third (57.24) behind the NTN Police HQ (56.94) and Tai Tam Tuk (57.13). Unfortunately, only the top two teams made the Gold Cup A final, hence we ended in the Gold Cup B final.

Following the roast pork chopping ceremony - which required the precision cutting and eye dotting expertise of the Admiral - was the Small Boat Final Gold Cup A, featuring the top six teams of the first round. It involved a minor diplomatic stand-off worthy of the current tensions in the Spratly Islands as the Taiwanese team made off with the Navy’s designated Frigate No. 4 before returning the captured vessel to the beach with much apology. Their distraction efforts were futile as they finished sixth and last (1:10.62), but the Navy’s real battle was against Kaiser (1:04.75) and University of Macau (1:05.97) which we ended in third (1:05.99) – two hundredth of a second behind Macau.

Back in the standard boat final the Navy was anchored next to South Eagles – a highly competitive Chinese team that won the main cup here several times in the past – as well as our Old Boy friends from the Sea School together with L.C.S.D. and Dragon in Mountain. When it was all said and done, the Navy racked up another third place behind Sea School and South Eagles – nothing to be ashamed of really, with a fantastic race pace and a great surge of power after forty strokes which saw us thundering to the beach in great style.

As we cleared our backlog of five cases of Foster’s and pondered over the day gone by, it was to some degree a reflection of the season as a whole: very competitive racing against mostly local teams who have all learned to pronounce “Liechtenstein” in Chinese as they’ve come to fear and respect the Men in Blue and Red. We are very much holding our own among the best of them and we will be back to challenge them for supremacy in the South China Sea or any other waters they may wish to engage us on!

LIECHTENSTEIN!!!