Last Saturday, May 14th, was the 11th annual Stanley Warm-Up Races! Not only was this our first racing event in Stanley for this season, it was also our first time paddling in Stanley this season, and, for some of us, the first time paddling in Stanley at all! Whichever situation we were in individually, we were all pretty pumped for this race event as a team. We had scanned the weather forecasts nervously all week and were not surprised that there were thunderstorms on the cards -- again! We weren't too phased. After all, who can forget the last time we were here for the Warm-Ups!? We had paddled in Black Rain and thunderstorms, and even had our last race cancelled for safety reasons! Luckily, this year turned out a little brighter for us, in more ways than one!
We met bright and early at Pacific Coffee at 7:30am. This meant an earlier start than on a school day for most of us! Fuelled with breakfast and enough caffeine to get us through our first race, we wandered down to Stanley Main Beach. We only wish we'd taken photos of the scene there, because we were met with a different set of wild weather elements that morning -- wind! The tents that had been set up for the teams had blown away! One can only imagine what this meant for our racing conditions... Having eventually found our homebase for the day, we warmed up and headed into our first race.
We met bright and early at Pacific Coffee at 7:30am. This meant an earlier start than on a school day for most of us! Fuelled with breakfast and enough caffeine to get us through our first race, we wandered down to Stanley Main Beach. We only wish we'd taken photos of the scene there, because we were met with a different set of wild weather elements that morning -- wind! The tents that had been set up for the teams had blown away! One can only imagine what this meant for our racing conditions... Having eventually found our homebase for the day, we warmed up and headed into our first race.
Race 9 was our first heat, and we were up against 7 other teams -- some we knew, and others we didn't. We had felt optimistic about our performance in this race and, with the tail wind that was behind all of us, ended up coming in 5th place with a time of 1:16:215. This qualified us for the Gold Bowl A Final which was much later in the day. |
Part of the Stanley Warm-Up Race tradition is to wander off of the beach and get a big cup of coffee and breakfast (and sometimes cake, let's not lie) from one of the restaurants in the square. Many other teams had had the same idea, and, with the wait being such a long one, we were able to incorporate a lot of other non-dragon boating activities, like shopping and catching up on magazine reading, as well! By early afternoon, we were sheltered ourselves from the elements. We waited patiently for our last race. As the Stanley Dragon Boat Association wasn't able to send out more than one set of boats at a time (it was that windy!), we were well over an hour behind schedule! But then again, isn't the waiting part of the fun...?
Just after 3:30, it was our time to shine in Race 51 -- the Gold Bowl A Finals! We recognised a couple of the other teams that we were up against and were determined to learn from our first race. The tail wind meant for a shorter race, with fewer strokes than we were used to, which meant that we had to give it our EVERYTHING in each and every stroke that we paddled. We couldn't underestimate the competition...!! This paid off, just looking at our times alone. Cassi, our drummer, called our first power up at just after twenty strokes into our race pace. This was unheard of! (Again, the tail wind...) But we heeded her call anyway and it paid off! We had managed to shave two seconds off of our race time from the heats and beat the competition by more than this -- a convincing lead. |
Watch us fly!
| Thanks, once again, to our sponsors, Tsunami Sport, i-Land Property, Casa Tapas Bar, APA Soccer Schools and Blue Sky Sports Club for your continued support of us this season. Thanks, also, to our paddlers, supporters, and captains, for everything they gave to make this great success happen! We have just six more training sessions before the big festival day races in Stanley on June 9th... With the same determination and commitment, and a couple of tweaks and adjustments here and there, we are feeling confident that we'll be ready for the big day. Paddles IN!! |
Our day in photos...