The Mighty Mermaids

back in Shanwei!

dawn — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 01:53:38 +0000

Here we are again, six months down the road, back at the little fishing village that is our satellite venue for the Games.

We flew yesterday at 8am (6am at the airport is E-A-R-L-Y) and spent the entire day travelling. It’s drizzly and foggy and light.

Today our mission is to unpack the 6 containers that have been shipped over. We’ve already been delayed with there being a hold up with breakfast (the cafeteria isn’t open yet), but we’re about to get down to the boat park now. See you later!

Fun with the optis

dawn — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 18:23:55 +0000

Big events like the Games is always when we get to know more people outside our immediate team. For the most part, we ‘older’ sailors already know everyone else, from previous trips and gym training in Singapore together. But the Optis tend to be an unknown bunch, because there are always new kids coming in as the older ones age out into other classes.

For example, one of the Optis at this training camp, Edward, I had never met before. (He turned out to be a quiet, but good kid. Er, not that the two qualities are mutually exclusive.)

I just wanted to mention them in this post because they are such a tough bunch of kids. All of them except Kimmy fell sick halfway through the camp but they all grunted through and came out the other end strong and healthy again.

Kimmy and Ryan are the AG sailors, but Yukie and Edward were great to have along, too. Thanks for your help, kids, and thanks for being cute roommates! (For the first few days until I moved downstairs, at least.)

2 weeks in Perth

dawn — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 02:51:09 +0000

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

dawn — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 23:46:06 +0000

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

dawn — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 04:05:08 +0000

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

dawn — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 05:06:09 +0000

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

dawn — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 04:24:51 +0000

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:

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!

race results

dawn — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 13:21:11 +0000

We’re at the end of another regatta now, and the results are here.

But one thing that has to be said about sailing is that results on the scoreboard just don’t show the complexity of the racing out on the water. And our last day was a big example of how within the space of 20 minutes, in a race, things can go from back to front and back again.

A bit of background first: we went into this regatta, our second selection regatta for the Asian Games, 5 points behind, as we’d come 5 positions behind our sole competitor at the first trial (Kieler Woche). So we would be looking to put enough boats between us if we were to win on points.

Going into the last day, we were ahead, though I wasn’t sure how much. The goal – just sail our best and race well.

We finished the first race of the day several boats behind – tough, but we had worked our arses off and caught up a great deal from the back of the fleet. Still, it could be down to the last race. And the nature of the game is, you don’t just get on them and cover them all the way because it’s so important to put boats in between.

So we were ahead from the start, we held it off upwind, down the first downwind leg, upwind again we made more distance, and by the reach, we were quite a way ahead with at least 5 boats in between.

And then the breeze disappeared. Shut down completely, and this is the quirky part of racing. These things happen and it seems so unjust, but it’s the name of the game. The breeze filled in from behind, in such an awkward way that us and the pack of boats just in front of us were in dead air while the boats behind started moving!

Ouch, indeed. We did our best to get going, but the last couple of boats snuck in below us and got to the next mark first. So not just us, but the 10 or so boats just ahead were suddenly not looking so flash. We came round onto the downwind, and it was a struggle, just sailing on as much wind as possible. We took the left side, thinking the breeze would fill in from there. And for a while, it was looking good. We were moving, higher but faster than most of the other boats. So down we went … and then three quarters of the way down, the wind did start filling in … from the other side.

Uh-oh. I didn’t exactly have a bird’s eye view of the fleet, but Craig said at one point, the other girls were looking in 10th (massive leap from how they’d rounded the windward mark, 4th last). It wasn’t looking too good … until the wind got to us and we came in from the left corner with good speed, Siobhan on trapeze.

And then here’s the crucial bit: the last leeward mark rounding. For those of you who aren’t familiar with sailing rules, we have a rule going round marks where the boat with inside overlap at a mark can call for room to go round that mark. We were the innermost boat of the 20 or so trying to go round at the same time. We got our inside overlap. Two more boats tried to squeeze in illegally and collided with us, we pushed our way out, and came up onto the final reach ahead, in the clear air lane, and looking really, really good. From a last ten to a top 10-15 spot.

Lesson learned: ALWAYS be in inner position at the mark.

So there was our heart-racing, so-hard-to-be-patient-but-just-had-to-be final leg of the last race, and it ended well for us. Quite a big contrast to the last race of Kiel, where the opposite happened.

Anyway, I guess our adventures will continue now. The final selection decision is up to the SingaporeSailing selection panel and SNOC, but with luck, we’ll get the green light.

Thanks, everyone for reading and for supporting us!

Cold, wet, and windy

dawn — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 16:50:52 +0000

It was only going to be cold and wet, but this wouldn’t be Weymouth without the windy, would it?

We launched in something like 2 knots, and came home in 20. Good thing we’ve got good sunnies for the job (yay Oakleys!)

I don’t know how to describe the awesomeness of sailing in 20 knots, with the boat just blasting along, skipping over waves, even launching off a few – that’s an experience good for some screams – and you’re working your arse off but totally enjoying it. There were bullet gusts coming down all day and that made reaching and downwinds a very heart-pounding experience.

So at the end of the day, windy I certainly don’t mind, but Weymouth, if you could do something about the cold and wet, I’d be much obliged!

Happy national day!

dawn — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:10:58 +0000

Somehow being overseas during National Day makes you feel more patriotic about the day. Here’s my little gift to Singapore:

It’s also the first day of racing. Race management has been pretty prompt, 3 fleets all done and ashore by 4pm.

We haven’t had the bitter cold weather of last year yet – not that I’m complaining! Just hoping it stays this way, just right in a wetsuit.