public announcement service: get in on the action!

hey guys,

if you want to contribute to this blog, email me and i'll send you the invite

online racing simulator for all you bored interns

hey guys, check out this online racing simulator (www.tacticat.com). it'll provide you with endless hours of fun - it did for me!

"there is no second"

america's cup is on right now!

catch the action every night on Ch 22 at 9.30pm. unfortunately, they are only showing highlights of the previous days races, but still, there's nothing like seeing that perfect gybeset or the famed kiwi drop live on TV. if only they'd show less competitive eating and more sailing on ESPN.

you can also tune into the action live on Americas Cup radio every night at 9pm (that's when the race starts at Valencia). the link is http://mfile.akamai.com/33786/live/reflector:24937.asx?bkup=40410. you can also follow the live text tracker on http://www.americascup.com/. reminds you of the time when you had to follow your favourite soccer team's matches on BBC radio eh?

after yesterday's lay day, the 'swiss' on Alinghi are back in action against the 'emirates' team new zealand (blame globalisation). a glaring mistake by the swiss let the new zealanders tie the series up at 1-1. everyone reckons the swiss has a rocket ship and are significantly faster than the kiwis, but race 2 has showed us that boat speed cannot make up for bad (or complacent) sailing, at least at the very top levels.

will the SUI-100 rocketship reassert itself tonight? or will kiwi guile prevail again? check it out tonight!

[Round 1] SMUve vs. Shengli: First blood

It was a nice sunny day today, with a forgiving sea state and a nice constant breeze throughout the day. PRO Wildon in charge on his Dynaglass and his unique 2 oar countdown system, we managed to hold 4 races of the inaugural SMUve vs. Shengli series.

The pirates sailed onboard SMUve today, with Renfred, Louis, Zhixin, Charmain, Jerry, Fiona, Tim Tio, and Jac sailed well today and emerged convicing winners with winning margins of up to 4 minutes after time correction. The deadly hatch raise worked well most of the time today to allow the pirates to extend their advantage at every mark rounding. Keeping close to the favored side, away from the adverse currents and catching each little puff that came their way saw SMUve sail 4 neat races today.

On Shengli, the brave bandits comprising of Alvin, Winfrid, Zhenghan, Lip Hang, Tse Tiann, Yn Ay, Sexy Jun Jia (welcome back!) and Ben sailed well but fell short of victory today. In the end, the pirates on SMUve swept the series 4-0. A big margin perhaps, but the team is determined to do better the next time. Always keep in mind the most important fundamentals of sailboat racing - you've gotta have good boatspeed & handling before anything else matters. Of course, this includes knowing what to do on the boat, and it was great to see people being more assertive on the boat today.

So then, first blood to SMUve. Who will emerge next weekend? Stay tuned. :)

Lip Hang's learning at RSYC Malaysia

Decided to pen this short passage to share my learning experience at Selangor Youth Championship with the entire sail team.

Well for those who were there with me, thanks for putting up with my frustration and sulking day in day out. For those cheering us on in Singapore, appreciated =)

Anyway, I learnt many important lessons during these 4 days at RSYC Port Klang. One can never be too prepared for a regatta, as much as I thought I was prepared for it, I was proven wrong each time we were out racing in the waters. (you can ask renfred, he can vouch for that) And of course, I would like to urge everyone in the club to share the same mindset when we prepare and brace ourselves for the next regatta. (coincidentally RSYC regatta too)

1. Play hard, train even harder. Cause when it comes to racing, there is no more opportunities for you to learn new things. If you find yourself learning new stuff while racing, hmm.... I reckon you won't get good results from the race.

2. Wear your Small shoe and Big shoe. This is something real interesting that Andrew shared with us at the regatta.

What's your small shoe? That is your primary role on the boat, that 'thing' that you are so good at and no one will need to help you with it. The shoe is so freaking small that there's not even enough space for your little pinky. (not exactly funny..)
Eg. if you are the trimmer, you must be so clear that no one will need to help you with sheeting the jib sheet, look for the winch handle, tidy your jib sheets, and best yet, the bowsman won't have to help you skirt the jib!

What's the big shoe then? Its when you can find time to help others with their roles on the boat when you are done with yours.

Well of course, this can only come with much training, so that the team can work together and everything moves on the boat like clock work. (with great precision and efficiency)

Anyways, hope you didn't doze off while reading my two cents worth of contribution.

Lets train hard and cream some A$$ at RSYC Singapore!

the early bird catches the bullet

was trawling the usual sailing websites today and i came across this little interesting nugget. it's about the Brietling Med Cup that's going on right now. It's raced on TP52s (you might remember FreeFire from this year's SSR - that's a TP52). Anyways, these boats are big money racing - a kind of a nautical arms race of boat builder wizards playing with carbon fibre hulls and rich owners splurging on exotic sails.

I got this writeup from valenciasailing.blogspot.com, commenting on the woes of one of the supposedly fastest boats of the fleet:

"One of the supposedly favorite boats, Mutua Madrileña, finished in the middle of the pack because of their inability to get into a position in the prestart that would have allowed them to carry out their tactics for the rest of the race. Although they were at the pin end, half of the fleet was there as well and when they wanted to tack they were unable since they were squeezed by four other yachts.

A fleet race with 23 boats can result extremely tricky at this level of competition. Despite the fact the Mutua Madrileña is a fast boat, they rounded the top mark 12th and the best they could achieve was to climb an additional 4 positions. According to Nacho Postigo, navigator of the team, boat speed can't do miracles. At best you can climb a handful of places but will not allow you to start 10th and win the race. " (valenciasailing.blogspot.com accessed 13 June 2007)

somehow, this struck me as very familiar. in selangor (also possibly for the J24 fleets for the coming regattas) having a good boat doesn't mean that you can do magic with boatspeed & tactics. it ultimately comes down to no mistakes and decent starts.. something to think about eh? :)

going for your personal best

in sport, you win some and you lose some. the key is to always go into every contest knowing that you have done your best. this philosophy is a fundamental one to every sportsman and sportswoman, and this is something which we continue to work hard at at our land trainings - every tuesday and thursday for a few good months now.

today for PT, we had our 2nd ever SMU-Esplanade timed run. the rationale for doing these timed runs is to allow us to push ourselves to our limits so as to continually achieve our personal best. the aim of this run is not inter-personal competition - it is not a race with the other person, rather, it is a race with yourself. we will do these timed runs every few months so that you can track your own progress and to serve as motivation to continue to work on your own individual fitness.

and the results were amazing. everyone who had participated in the 1st timed run posted marked improvements! well done guys.. and till the next time, keep on going! :)

the results are posted on our forum at http://smusails.jconserv.net/viewtopic.php?t=5

Day 3 - Race 3

The final race and every boat seem to want to do their best. The Malaysia 1 and Philippines were again first to the line leaving the other 4 boats fighting out for 3rd - 6th position. The last 4 boats rounded the windward mark within 1 feet from each other and all hoist the spin at about the same time covering each other.

We rounded the leeward mark just behind the Thais with the other 2 at our tail. It was then between us and the Thais battling for 3rd possible again but this time they were the better team and crossed the finishing line about 1 boat lenght before we did.

This race we scored 4th

Day 3 - Race 2

We were 3rd across the line decide to start near the committee boat with the Thai Team. The Philippines and Malaysian Team were fighting their own battle at the other end of the line.

We caught up with the Philippines team and were fighting tack for tack just like match races. Towards the windward mark, we had a collation with the Philippines (we were on port tack) and had to do a 720 degree penalty letting the 2 other boats (Thai and Malaysia team 3) to cross us just before the windward mark.

Laying in 5th, we knew we had to pull something extra for at least a good finish and we did. We managed to find better winds on the right side of the course and caught up with the Malaysian boat which crossed us while doing our penalty. Then it was tack for tack with the Thai boat which we managed to beat and took back our possible. This is a real hard working race man.

This race we scored 3rd.

Day 3 - Race 1

Wind is gusting about 6 - 8 knots. We didn't have a good start being knock off the line early and was the last to cross the line. The rest of the race, we had to play a catch up game. Having torn our "We Love SMU" Spinnaker, we decided to keep it for our home races and use their given green spin.

We managed to catch one boat but was a little too late to catch another. The good thing is that we didn't make many mistakes. =P

This race we scored 5th

A Special Request from Someone to DAWN...

Day 2 - Race 3

All boats were very matched at the start of the today's 3rd race (we are Boat no. 3) . We were doing very well up to the pont when the wind changed 40 degrees against us and screwed our position. We than had to tack and was last to round the windward mark.

To make matters worst, we had difficulty raising the spin and had to take it down to sail to the Gybe mark (its a triangle/sausage race). At this point, we knew that this 2 errors caused us the race and had to settle for last. Above is how it looks when you are at the last position. We hope for a better tomorrow and will continue to try our best against the best in Asian.

This raced we scored 6th. =(

Day 2 - Race 2

The next race started immediately when the last boat finished the last race. Again, we had a good start keeping clear from the boat coming in from the committee boat end just behind the Thais. Again, our boat speed was in the groove and pulled away together with the Philippines team. Again we were first across the first windward mark but once again losing out at the raising of the Spin. We tried covering but they seem to strong to catch.

Tack for tack, gybe for gybe, we tried but the all National SEA Games Sailors from the Philippines seem to always be a first step ahead of us and even threw a dummy gybe at us. Close behind we 2 Malaysian boats closing and trying to cover us.

Going the last leg to the finishing line, we had only a gybe to do to secure our 2nd place. We were to the leeward of the chasing pack, gunning for the line. We spotted a big black gust to our leeward and decided to put in a gybe to intercept that gust to try to catch up with the Phillipines team. That gust was a little stronger than anticipated and we nearly broached when gybing. As they say, when it rains, it pours. Just minutes later, we broached for real. Pinned to the water, spinnaker flapping, mainsail limp, trying to get the rudder in the water to bear off to a dead downwind, it was just heartbreaking to see the 2 boats behind us surge forward. After what seemed like an eternity, we managed to get our noses clean and bear our bow down to the finish. The first boat crossed, as did the second boat. We popped our spin and were in a sprint to the finish with the 3rd boat to the line. But it was too little too late and we crossed the line in 4th. Lesson learnt: broaches can happen anytime and prevention is always better than cure.

This race we scored 4th place. =(

Day 2 - Race 1

The halyard was fixed, the team spirit was high and ready to go. Wind was light and all of us had to be towed out again. By 1pm, the Race Officer, John Feguson was ready and sounded the horn for the start of the race. We were the 2nd boat across the start line behind the Malaysian team. Managed to cross their bow and crossed the windward mark first but lost again as they had a better spoin hoist at the mark. us pulled ahead and extended the lead from the rests of the pack.

Heng Li, the skipper of the Malaysian team and crew were gunning to be selected for the December SEA Games. We matched them equally and wasn't able to catch up with them. Lost out by 6 secs to the finishing line.

This race we scored 2nd place....yahoo!!!!

Day 1 - Overall

Good showing by the Philippines Team with significant distance from second boat in all 3 races. Singapore SMU ran over their spinnaker in the first race, and retired to sort out the tangle. Their jib halyard parted during the second race, giving them a distinct disadvantage in the third race where they did their best at flying jib and spinnaker alternately off the same halyard. The Thailand International team are well in contention, having a private battle with Malaysia 2 helmed by Ng Heng Li, who is just one point ahead after 3 races.

All to go for tomorrow, and if this wind persists we should see some great, close racing.

Philippines - 3pts

Malaysia - 7 pts

Thailand - 8 pts

Day 1 - Race 3

As we were trying to fix the broken halyard, the horn sounded for the 3 race. It is a triangle, sausage race with an upwind finish this time. This works against us big time because of our halyard problems. The guys decided to still try their best to complete the race.

Lots of drama in this race fighting to raise spin and jib. Using the spin halyard, the jib wasn't able to raise all the way up resulting to poor upbeat sailing. We were not able to catch up with the fleet but the guys still sail with pride wearing their "We love SMU" Tee to the finishing line.

The team were pretty quiet for the rest of the sail back to the marina. We managed to have a good debrief and all hope for a better race tomorrow. The series may be gone for us but we are still hungry and hopeful for individual races.

We are last and scored 6.

Day 1 - Race 2

This race we decided to play safe and remembering the words of Wildon: "NO MISTAKE!!! Let's have a no mistake race". We had a great start and was the second boat to cross the line. Towards the windward mark, the jib halyard broke! At this point we knew we were shit as we can only have either the spin or jib up each time. Nevertheless, we did our best but our morale dropped each time we see our race position slipped as we round the mark.

This race we scored 4th.

Day 1 - Race 1

The day didn't start well for the team. Somehow, what can go wrong had gone badly wrong for us. First up, we forgot to bring the sailing instructions but managed to get a spare copy from the office. Then as we were about to get a tow out to the race area, we forgot to bring the compass which we in the store. The fleet finally were towed out of the marina together.

We had our first hoist of our "We love SMU" spin and boy was it beautiful. Not before long, the Race official sounded the horn for race 1 signaling for windwards/leewards course. Off went the starting signal and 2 boats were OCS. Boat 155 and 154. Yes, our team is one of the OCS boat sailing on boat 3 (sail no. 154). We only realized we were OCS after about 15 - 20 boat lenght away. We turn back and at the point we were last place.

We worked hard and caught up to forth. However, just when we were gaining on boat number 3, we had our spinnaker caught under the keel during a take down and had to retire from the race. The crew will need to cover the holes made on our new spin. *Sad*

This race, we scored RTD. =(

TEAM from Philippines

The Philippines Team is made out of experience dinghy sailors from young. Their youngest team member is 17 years old and oldest and one of the experience senior is 25 years old. They were super fast at yesterday's training race coming in first, more than 5 mins ahead of the 2nd boat. Yes, they seem to be the team to beat of now.

The Manager, Medy was saying (joking) to her team that if they don't do well in the series, they will all have to return home on their own. Also if they do well at today's race, she will bring them out shopping at Berjaya Time Square. Haha.

Team Manager/Coach - Medy Fidel

Skipper - Rafael Buitre

Mains - Patrick Mata

Trimmer - Troy Tayong (17 years old)

Keyboard/Box - Mark Francisco

Bow - Bentot delos Santos

Day 1 - Training Race

In the morning, all six teams were busy tuning and preparation their boats for the Training Race. Seem like we were overly prepared bringing more gears then some of the countries and help out what ever we could spare.

We were suppose to be out by 12 noon but was delayed due to the arrival of the new main sails with the sponsored logo. All teams did their own training before the race officer arrive at 3.30 throwing in 2 practice starts and then a training race (windward and leeward). SMU Team were OCS on that race but managed to catch up to third but got carried away over a match race with one of the Malaysian team where the other teams caught up. Finally was fifth in the end.

The team learned a lots about currents and wind shift here. Much communcation was done at the debrief to iron out their mistakes made today. The team morale is still high knowing they are can do better. Making great friends from the Malaysian and Thais team helped release the pressure of the guys.

Meet our friends from the Thai Team

The first image that comes to your mind when we say Thai Team will probably be the dark tanned looking thais we see at coro cup but i'm afraid not for here. They do not plainly associate themselves with the thai team instead, they call themselves the International Team. But to make it sound more politically correct, its "Thai Team-International". We took time off during lunch to find out more about them.

Teiki, Skipper
A 22 years old French born a sailor, living on the boat since his first cry. He works on the boat, bringing sea lovers out on his boat for a few weeks to do all sorts of sea sports. At the same time, he will take time out to surf. He dislikes it when crews don't show up on time. There was one incident he loves to share about, during a mark rounding in Langkawi regatta, his bowman disappeared into the hatch to do big business. He is multi-lingual: French, Spanish, Bahasa Indonesia, English and a fair bit of Thai.

Valentine
Like Teiki, she is a French as well. Her life is surrounded with partying (really happening girl!) and now she has found a new interest, sailing. Her first keelboat experience was during the Langkawi regatta that we participated last Feburary. An adventurous girl who loves to try everything except one thing: her hate for chocolates is just like our hate for no wind. An amazing thing that she does.. flipping the beer coasters 17 times consecutively.

Mia
She comes from Perth and also grew up on the boat, to be exact a 30 ft boat at the age of 9months. She has been racing on keelboat at the age of 16 (now she is 21). Apart from sailing, she enjoys kiteboarding and wakeboarding. Photography is her interest when she is not out at sea. We asked her what she dislikes. She non-hesistantly said, boats that budge on the start line. Now is that a hint for Team SMU? Hrm...

Chas
I must say, he looks more mature than his age. He is only 20years old. I guess it is largely to due to his dislike for sunscreen and he has never applied them despite the countless times he goes out into the sun. He started keelboat sailing at the age of 14 and the largest boat he has sailed on is a 80ft Swan for the Manila to Boracay race. Although he is a British, he grew up in Asia. He also sails on Jelik, the 72ft boat we saw at Langkawi regatta.


Shay-na
When we asked her what is her nationality, she shrug her shoulders and say i don't know. She has been staying in so many countries that she doesn't know where is her physical home but for sure we know she can speak darn fluent thai. Shay-na started sailing keelboat when she is 13 but when she is not sailing, she let her artistic nature take control. She loves to draw and take photographs. Her imagination runs wild.. she wants to be a coconut drifting in the sea, free of all worries.

1st Night with visiting teams

Check out the rooms we got from the organisers. We are staying at CRYSTAL CROWN HOTEL, Harbour View Port Klang about 15 - 20 mins taxi ride away. It cost us RM$15 per cab.

After checking in and taking a well deserved shower, we headed back to the Club to meet up with all the other visiting teams over a pool side dinner. We mingled well with the Thailand and Philippines teams. We spoke about a possible inter-country youth collaboration sailing exchange. After talking for a while, we all watched the America's Cup match race together at the BAR. Yes...BAR........sorry no beer were served (I think..hee hee).

Thought we include some pictures of the Royal Selangor Yacht Club, a very old and prestigious Yacht Club in Malaysia. This Club really have a big history behind it who started the Raja Muda Int. Regatta. Let us tell you that they really know how to take care of their guests here and things are cheap. They serve "Nasi Gorang" for just RP$5.00 (large portion too).

The sunset here is really beautiful too as Jason can tell you. Got lots of pictures of it.



Tomorrow will be our first training race with all the participating teams. Calling in early tonight and hope to do well tomorrow. =)

Light Winds, Strong Currents

Just returned to shore from training before the practice race tomorrow. It was our very first training together as a team. We managed to iron out our specific roles and teamwork which will help us a great deal for the next 4 days. The external challenge to us here is the conditions at the racing area. It is our first time experiencing light winds coupled with very strong currents (4 knots). The currents are so strong that that our boat speed was 4 knots but on our GPS it shows 0.3 knots meaning there is 3.7 knots of current against us. In the end, we resorted to motoring back to the club. Right now, we are coming up with strategies to counter this.

On the lighter note, the make up of our team has changed from 5 singaporean boys to 4 singaporean boys and 1 japanese boy - guess who is that? Renfred Kaneshiro..

We have arrived at Royal Selangor Yacht Club - Malaysia

The Team was excited and gathered together in SMU to check on our gears and logistics before making our way to the Golden Mile Complex where our bus awaits us. Lesson learned is never try flagging a Taxi from 10.30pm - 11.30pm. They will never stop for you. *Sigh*

We managed to reach on time to catch our bus and left on time at 11.30pm on Tuesday. The coach was super comfortable and felt money worth paying for. As Lip Hang said, "why pay $30 over dollar when you can pay $72 for this comfort."

At 2am, we stopped at "YONG PANG" for about 30 minute for a toilet break and a some small makan. Renfred and Andrew couldn't resist the Ramly Burger which cost only RP$4 each.

We finally reached Barjaya Time Square, KL at 5.15am on Wednesday and transferred our belongings to a mini van which was waiting for us. Loaded up and off we went. Arrived RSYC at 6.30am only to find that all the doors were locked. Haha......yes, we managed to find our way in(don't tell you how) and within minutes, all of us were snoring.

The Marina boatmen are now launching all the Platus. We should be starting our checks and training soon. Stay tune for more updates to come.

Geee....feeling HUNGRY....need to look for BREAKFAST!!! LIP HANG & JASON....start cooking!!!

Summer TRAININGS & Dawn's schedule

hello darlings,

i feel absolutely absorbed in the sad world of auditing and tax at the moment (ask me anything about IT audit now!) but it's all ending soon, hooray, and then summer can start finally!! okay, i know i'm two months behind everyone, but anyway, back to sailing.

firstly, all the best to the team going to selangor! next, this weekend is the wacky race at SAYFC sembawang (http://www.safyc.org.sg/fabulous40/) so all those of you who haven't signed up, TELL US NOW! there won't be keelboat training this weekend by the way, so what else are you going to do on the weekend, right? :p

training this summer will be great, and we've the RSYC regatta starting on the 28th of July, that's exactly 53 days away! so train hard everyone, i'm gonna be away from the 10th to 24th of june on an OCIP trip, but i know you guys will be working hard and i'll come back to 4 fantassstic teams! :)

love
dawn