Mui Wo – we love it and we hate it! On a beautiful day (like this morning), we love it because it’s a great beach, not as cramped and packed as Stanley, and the event generally runs quite smoothly. And we hate it, mostly because we have to catch that dreaded slowboat at 0700hrs on a Sunday morning! And no matter what, the race is never short of controversy…

But love it or hate it, if you want to paddle in Stanley you’ve gotta paddle in Mui Wo! It is the last race before the Stanley Championships and it’s an excellent event to fine-tune our racing skills over a similar distance (300m).

Also, it’s an ‘old school’ event in heavy wooden boats with wooden paddles. None of that carbon-fiber high-tech stuff. And the start is also very much ‘old school’: As soon as the four boats are somewhere near the starting line it’s READYGOTOOT!

And we KNOW this. And we TALKED about this. And we REMINDED everyone about it. And STILL we messed it up in the first heat. Totally unprepared, the entire boat missed the start completely. By what was supposedly the second stroke, people were looking left and right, maybe thinking the race would be re-started because we missed it. But they don’t – THEY NEVER DO! So it took us about ten strokes to get back into the race, which we still managed to win in 1.07 flat ahead of I LOVE DRAGON in 1.07.31 and the Palm Beach Buffaloes in 1.07.74.

But the position doesn’t matter here – it’s the time that matters as the combined times from the first and second heat will determine which final you end up in.

The Admiral was furious and told the crew in no uncertain terms that such a lack of focus at the start is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE for a crew of our stature. Clearly the second heat would need to be much better.

And it was: focused with a cleanly executed start and a fairly rhythmic chug to the beach. It was P1 again and we had shaven almost a second off our previous time. It was the third fastest time of the second heats and our combined times was the 4th best, thus putting us – yet again – into Gold Cup Final.

So into the Gold Cup Final we went – where we got the distinct feeling that we weren’t particularly welcome. Firstly, the starters seem to make no effort to align the boats and, with the Navy still clearly behind, felt it appropriate to start the race. Later, with our boat fighting from behind, Windrider in lane 2 came charging at us for no apparent reason (water was calm and conditions were good), forcing us to take evasive action off course. As our helmsman tried to straighten things out there was contact on the starboard side, paddles smashing into each other. After much zigging and zagging we eventually reached the beach in last place and promptly filed a protest. But the organizers did not seem very interested or open to our complaints, although Windrider eventually stepped forward and acknowledged their mistake. Thus our positions were swapped and we were officially declared third.

It left a somewhat bitter aftertaste, as many of our paddlers felt that there was an element of racism involved towards a non-Chinese crew. At the very least, however, it is a shame that an event that could be a great race on the calendar doesn’t make a bigger effort to be a bit more professional in terms starters, rules and officials.

Love it or hate it – it’s Mui Wo!

P.S. Our gripes shouldn't detract from the fact that this was our best result ever in Mui Wo! We have never made the Gold Cup Final here before - and this was the fourth time in four events that we made it into the top final this season. The Liechtenstein Princely Navy - going from strength to strength…