Last year, Papillon lost in the heats to a team called NewUrbanMale (NUM) by only 0.5s after a nearly 5 minute race. I never got over it – most of us did not.
See post on the subject in July 2007
This year, our goal was: 1) make it to the semis and 2) Beat NewUrbanMale!
Once again, there is no Inter-Corporate Mixed competition so Papillon is entered in the open division together with EM Ace, EM Roaring Forties (our veterans) and EM Refinery. EM Sea Blades is in Inter-business clubs and houses and EM Tiger Lillies is entered in the Inter-Corporate Ladies. A full house as last year.
Just as a reminder, this is one of the largest Dragon Boat competitions in Singapore and is definitely the longest at 800 m. This may not seem like much to you, but 4 1/2 minutes of hard rowing is a grueling race. Most of the other events we will enter are run over 250 or 300 m.
Papillon is drawn in the fourth heat, against Manulife, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Shell, and Health Science Authority – no NUM.
The start is delayed as two of the teams are having problems setting up. They have a new starting ‘method’ for this year with a pontoon and the boats are held in position. It is much easier once you are in place, but a little more difficult to get in position, especially since the wind is strong and against us. We wait patiently, breath deep and concentrate.
The start is good, with our new strategy of 30 hard strokes propelling us into the lead. Very quickly, it is a two boat race, between ourselves and RBS – all the others are far behind. After our hard-10, we are even with RBS, but they do a hard-10 and take a 1 or 2 seat lead. Patrick, our coach, is thinking for all of us, and does not call for a second hard-10. He also does an abbreviated charge of only 50 m. The rules are simple – the top two teams in each heat qualify for the semi finals – no point in wasting energy now.
We come in second to RBS with an excellent time of 4 m 51 s, slower than last year, but we were rowing against a very strong wind. The other teams in our heat are very far behind. Here are the results:
Most of the teams in the other heats have times above 5 minutes. A lot of the top teams do not go all out in the heats, true, but we have a time in the top 10 which is not too bad considering that we are competing against all male teams and we have 2 (very good) ladies rowing with us.
Our first objective is met.
Sunday – we are in the first semi-final, with HP (who had the best time in the heats), our old friends NUM, UBS, Citibank and National Health Care. Three other EM Teams are qualified for the semi-finals – a better result than last year.
Earlier in the morning, the Tiger Lillies had their semi-final (only 12 teams signed up) and qualified in third place for the final.
We know our task is difficult. Only the top two teams in each semi-final will qualify for the final. HP is probably untouchable so once again, it looks like NUM, and our performance against them, will be the deciding factor. In the heats, NUM Had a slower time than we did, but, as I said earlier, this is not always a good indication of the potential of a team. We board the boat near the finishing line and therefore use the 800 m to the starting point as a final tune-up and warm-up.
We have a good start. Since I am on the left side of our boat, I can glance at HP and NUM and we are even with them. After 200 m HP starts to draw ahead with a faster maintenance pace than we can maintain. NUM draws ahead as well, but our hard-10 brings us back closer. After 400 m, the race is essentially decided. HP and NUM are stronger than we are and slowly draw away from us. One more hard-10 brings us closer, but not close enough to challenge. In the end, we are close third, beaten again by NUM!
The advantage of being part of a larger Dragon Boat family is immediately obvious. We are clearly disappointed not to have advanced to the final but when we return to the ExxonMobil tent, we are greeted with applause and pats on the back by all, dragon boaters and fans alike. Just what we needed to realise that what we did was an achievement after all.
Unfortunately, none of the other EM men’s team qualified for the finals. The Lillies did quite well, coming in 5 th place overall. HP won both the men and the ladies competitions!
Just as a point of comparison, the top 10-men competition is the Inter-business houses and clubs. Their time is 10-20 seconds faster than we can do.
And the national final for 20-men boats is more than a minute quicker …
We have a long way to go before we can compete at these levels.
Overall, we had a lot of fun … we took this photo of the ‘happy’ family at the end of the day.
Coming up: Corporate Community Games on 12 July and the Jurong Island Races on 26 July (which I will unfortunately miss). We are ready as both of these are true mixed competitions where we have a better chance of success.
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Wow, stiff competition … and they don’t seem to be resting on their laurels.