While the Stanley Championships have continued to grow in size every year – particularly in the Mixed division, where there were 191 teams this year – the elite Men’s A Cup remains a fairly exclusive Club, with only 12 teams competing for the big cup. You’d think that would make it easier, but you’d be wrong.

The format since last year was that all 12 teams would compete against each other three times, with points for position. The team with the most points wins the Cup. Hence, unlike your typical Heats-Semis-Final format, this meant that each heat was a final. And anything can happen in a final, as we know…

Lining up for our first heat at 10:15 in scorching heat (35 degrees), we didn’t know what to expect. Of course we had a battle plan (30 start, transition, chug to the line) and we knew what to focus on (form, power and timing). But what to expect of our competitors? It was clear that the Royal X would fight hard to defend their trophy and although we knew from Lamma and DWB that we could beat them over 500m, we hadn’t raced them over the short distance.

And what about DCH USA, flown in from New York? They were not part of the original 12 A-list crews, but appeared to have been swapped in for ‘Stanley Market’ at the last minute. That didn’t seem quite appropriate and appeared to be designed to raise the international profile of the event (which could have been quite controversial if they had walked away with the trophy).

But there was no time to ponder, as the starting gun went off and we raced towards the large crowd on the beach. As we crossed the line the picture became clearer. Not only were we beaten by the X Men and the Yankees, but both the Sea School Old Boys and their team of young kids had arrived ahead of us. P5. Not quite where we wanted to be.

Something obviously had to change for Heat 2. Freshly promoted to Lieutenant Commander, Chief Racing Officer Dave prescribed more aggression for the start. We were too sluggish off the line and now we had little to lose. So out we went for Race 44 in Lane 4 – clearly a lucky omen in a Chinese sport! And we came 4th! But it could have been third, because we were ahead of the Old Boys when we made the POWER UP call at 40. But it seemed like they got the call instead, as they reeled us in on the last 20 strokes.

Our dream of the Stanley Championship was obviously in tatters by now. But the mood of the crew remained buoyant – it was a brilliant day, it was Stanley and maybe some weight had lifted off our shoulders. We would simply go out there and give it our best one more time.

But this time, it all went haywire. Paddling in Lane 8 we had barely come out of the transition as boat 9 closed in on us on the right, paddles slapping into each other. Normally when contact happens, the boats soon head into the opposite direction, but the DBS Old Boys just seemed like glued to us. While some of us kept paddling as best as we could, POFC Martin was trying to physically push the rival boat back into its lane. But by now it was all in wane, of course. Once we had disentangled ourselves we were hopelessly behind, trying to find pace and power to get us to the line, which we eventually reached in eight position.

There was no point in fighting or arguing or filing a protest, as it would not have led to an improvement in our position. We were not fighting for the Championship at this stage, just an outside possibly for a spot on the podium. In the end we were still fourth overall, despite the P8 in the final heat. But we had no interest in collecting a third runner up trophy and thus retreated to our junk and ice-cold stash of Singha fuel.

But the mood of the crew was anything but glum. All Sailors seemed to have enjoyed themselves, coming together as a team to competing at such a fierce and ferocious level in what must clearly rank as the biggest and craziest dragon boat event on the planet. And there is plenty of confidence and self-believe in the team that we can – and will – one day win that trophy for Liechtenstein!