2 weeks in Perth

There are 10 days left to the opening of the Asian Games. Where has all the time gone?

The last two weeks in Perth gusted by (with many 20 knot days!) and we’re down to the last three days in Singapore before we leave on Friday. There are plenty of stories from Perth to share, and I’m sorry there wasn’t that much time to tell it as it happened. I’ll try to use these three days in Singapore to recap the fun, though!

Today I popped into Sports Council to make sure the sports medicine side of things was covered. I guess the rest of the team had similar ideas, because it was Sailor Central there – poor Dr Cormac, inundated by sailors this morning!

Last week in Singapore

We packed up our gear today because in less than a week, we’re heading to Perth for the next phase of our training leading up to the Asian Games. Today concludes the third week of intensive training in Singapore. We’ve been really lucky to have the opportunity to work with Mark Plummer this past month; he is an excellent coach! Thanks, Mark!

And have I mentioned yet that Mark is probably one of the funniest guys I’ve ever met. My favourite comment from him has to be when he suggested that humans should lay eggs.

‘I mean, it’s okay for me, but for the girls, having to carry the baby around for nine months? Wouldn’t it be so much easier if you could just pop out an egg and put it in the oven, and there’s the baby!’

I’m going to miss that, hee hee.

Plus, he takes videos. And so for the first time, we can actually show you guys what we really do out there. For those of you who haven’t actually seen sailing in action … enjoy! (This is about as good as it gets in Singapore.)

Container Packing

We’ve spent the weekend packing the containers going to China. There are 6 in total, to ship all our boats, equipment, coach powerboats, food and water to Shanwei.

Oh, and there are little air conditioned offices in two of them. For chilling and for a tools workshop in Shanwei. That is going to be super important!

What with people being overseas, there ended up only 6 sailors and a handful of coaches being available to pack. At least coming home we should have all hands on deck.

50 day countdown

There are 50 days to the opening ceremony of the Asian Games. The sailing team has officially been announced, and we will be going, along with 18 other sailors and about 10 or so officials. Back to the little fishing village, Shanwei. I’m looking forward to the waves. Remember this?

Anyway, here’s the full team:
- 470 Men: Roy Tay and Terence Koh
- 470 Women: Dawn Liu and Siobhan Tam
- 420 Men: Justin Liu and Sherman Cheng
- 420 Women: Rachel Lee and Cecilia Low
- Laser Standard: Colin Cheng
- Laser Radial: Scott Sydney
- RSX: Leonard Ong
- Mistral: Joshua Choo
- Hobie 16: Teo Wee Chin and Justin Wong
- Optimist Boys: Ryan Lo
- Optimist Girls: Kimberly Lim
- Keelboat: Tan Wearn Haw, Yurii Siegel, Colin Ng and Benjamin Tan

We’ve just completed stage 1 of our final AG preparations. We’re still in Singapore at this stage and we’ve been working with 2 new coaches, Dan Smith and Mark Plummer.

Will try to update more regularly as we proceed, because this is it, people – the final, most exciting stretch of our campaign this year!

Youth Olympic Games

We’re back in Singapore and taking a break while NSC is closed for a big event: the inaugural Youth Olympic Games!

Both of us are volunteering for the sailing regatta, as ‘Twitters’. Basically what we do is go out on water on powerboat with laptops and we post on Twitter what is going on as the boats race. So everyone back on shore can get live, real time updates of how the race is progressing. Even if they’re halfway around the world!

I am working on the Byte Boys’ course, while Siobhan is updating from the Bic Techno Girls’ course. The Twitter sites are as follows:

Byte Boys

Byte Girls

Bic Techno Boys

Bic Techno Girls

Singapore is fielding three sailors: Darren Choy in the Byte Boys, Natasha Michiko Yokoyama in the Byte Girls, and Audrey Yong in the Bic Techno Girls. They’re all doing pretty well so hop over to the YOG sites and support them!

gearing up for thailand

I finally remembered to bring the camera out on water today to have some pictures to brighten things up around here.

This weekend we’ve been spending long hours on water, with keelboat training in the morning and regular training in the afternoon.

Although I’m helming, Siobhan has to take the tiller for me when I fiddle about with the engine getting out of the harbour. (Though, obviously, I was fiddling more with the camera at this particular moment.)

Helming on a keelboat rocks. You get to sit and steer and watch everyone else work, like when they take down the sail. Haha.

We leave on Wednesday. Hope the protests in Bangkok die down some!

gasket woes

While we wait for the container from China (and all the equipment and tools in it) to return, we’ve had to patch up the gasket on the available boat in Singapore using whatever materials we have.

This is a gasket:

It goes on the underside of the boat, where the centreboard fits through. Its purpose is to stop water from coming up through the centreboard hole when we sail (believe me, without a gasket, that hole is like a perpetual water fountain!)

It’s also the bane of a double-handed sailor’s life because fixing it usually means at least an hour of scraping away glue/tape and pasting on the new gasket, trying to get the tapes nice and smooth.

We’ve already done it twice this weekend, and unfortunately our proper gasket tapes are coming to us over the ocean. Please let our container be home soon!!!

SMU Sailing rocks my old TK socks.

Today Dawn and I sailed with our Platu team for Top of the Gulf Regatta this late April-May. My first time crewing in a Platu and it wasn’t too bad. I went up to TOGR in 2008 with an all girls team as their helm. This time we have 2 guys and 4 girls. We’re excited..

Dawn: Helm
Bun: Mainsheet/Spin
Lips: Jib/Spin
Karene: Pit/(Saikang)
Junjia: Mast
Winfrid: Bow

We have to admit that we haven’t contributed as much as we would like to, to the SMU Sailing Team since joining SMU because we’re so busy with training and school… but the team is always so supportive and enthusiastic and I love working with them. So this year, we’ve finally made time to sail TOGR with the team. Oh that reminds me of the surprise-welcome-us-home appearance at the airport when we came back from ASC! THANKS GUYS!

We had a “secret adventure” out at sea off Raffles Marina today that I’m proud to say, we conquered with a bit of brain and breeze. It’s so fun to sail KEELboat.

The national Hobie16 guys will also be at TOGR for their Asian Games Selections, so we can keep up with their races live while we’re there.

Link to the TOG website: http://www.topofthegulfregatta.com/

Next Platu training, after exams.
Next 470 training, after OSIM triathlon (NSC closed).

back in singapore… for exams!!

We’re back in Singapore now and exams start in 1 and a half week’s time. Exams and I don’t go very well together. But anyway, I’ll study. I PROMISE. Come to think of it, I don’t have problems with Exams.. i just have problems with Results.

In summary, the racing at ASC was super fun. Racing is always fun anyway. There was all sorts of conditions, from very very light to very very strong. Flat water to huge swells. We’ve come out of this regatta with a direction, knowing which areas to focus on in our training the next 2-3 months. Mostly need to work on heavy wind stuff. But before we do, we need more weight and more strength.

The helm of the winning Chinese 470 women’s team could not believe that Dawn’s crew is smaller than her. I need weight, and I need it quick. I need height too, but.. sigh. Move on.

Will be a busy 3-4 weeks before school holidays when we can focus all our energy on selections. We’re excited!!

Heard it’s been raining almost everyday here in Singapore, while we were away. Hope the weather gets better and I can go cycling again soon.. Home sweet home.

Last training session before China

Leaving in 3 days.

(Pink font matches Siobhan’s new sunglasses.)

This week the Singapore Youth Championship is going on. Lots of Optimist out on water racing. (Many other classes, too, but the Optimist are the most numerous.)

(The first bunch of kids coming back to shore. We overtook most of them coming in, fortunately, because it’s not fun fighting for beach space with a whole bunch of other boats.)

On our way in, I think some kids were fascinated by the ‘big boat’. One of them called out to us, ‘Nice boat!’

One little boy came to ask for the hose when we were washing up. It was actually a nice change to see a kid that polite. Good job, boy’s parents!

After training we had to pack up our gear. Siobhan found a smart way to carry her things around. Behold her new backpack!

The Zhik harness is evidently multi-purposeful!