With the Stanley Warm Up Race on Saturday (racing both standard and small boats) and Deep Water Bay on Sunday – this was going to be a long weekend – hence we’ll condense it into a short report!

The Stanley Warm Up Races have grown from a casual early season event into a full-blown crazy fill-the-beach-to-the-brim-with-paddlers kind of event, with 96 teams in the Mixed division alone. The Men’s division – the only one we’ll ever contest – was a field of 39 teams with plenty of local teams, in particular Disciplinary Forces teams such as fire and police teams!

But we’re the Navy and we’re not easily intimidated by civilian forces and we fought our way valiantly through the field into the Gold Cup, where we faced off again not one, but TWO firemen teams, the police and a load of other Chinese teams. We were the only ‘gweilo’ team left standing in the final race of the day and finished, well, fourth runner-up – a polite way to say we were 5th!

In the small boat category – which featured 10 teams – we also made the top final and faced off against Stormies, who – it must be said – had a smokin’ start and built a lead they wouldn’t give up for the next 250m. P2.