ASEAN OPTIMIST CHAMPIONSHIPSBy: Francisco Lardies
When we arrived in Kuala Lumpur after our 11 hour flight we were picked up by the president of the Malaysian Opti Asociation and we were driven to the resort in Port Dickson. The next day we went into town for grocery shopping and we were surprised at the extreme heat we were all struggling to just walk around in.
We were given some club boats to train in as the charter boats don't arrive till Friday. We had four days till the start of the event to train and get used to the conditions. We were still struggling with the heat and needed to be refreshed in the pool every five minutes.
On Thursday we went sailing and found the 3 knots of wind and 4 knots of tide extremely difficult making transits on start lines, reaches and runs essential. We went up against the Malaysians and Sri Lankans. Scot, Russel and myself quickly built an easy lead while George and Sussanah were just staying in front of the rest of them.
On Friday the pool was considered out of bounds except for morning, lunch and afternoon. And in the morning 20 lengths had to be swum. I woke up struggling to move my arm so I didn't sail. The rest of the team went out and raced against the Malaysians and got smashed this time.
First day of racing - my arm was slightly better but I was struggling to pull the mainsheet but the worst thing was when they started the first race in 1 knot of breeze. Just like all the other days there were holes everywhere and at times it was hard to even move forward against the tide. The second race was extremely bad and the Japanese and Sri Lankans were disqualified for outside help when they were towed to the start line. I protested the race committee because they finished the fleet the wrong way round the mark. Most countries were really happy at my actions.
The second day - the third race was much the same with only 19 boats finishing (Scoty was coming 20!!) with Scoty, Russel and myself came DNF.
On the teams racing we bet all the other non-asean teams and will race off against Singapore. 2 fleet races were done as well with Scotty only doing 1 as he was feeling sick. There was about 10 knots and we managed to get better results but most of us were still slow.
On the lay day we went to a water park in KL.
For the second half of the regatta the wind was slightly stronger and the whole team improved on their results.
Final results:
- George 17th and first non Asian,
- Susannah 24th,
- Russell 26th,
- Scotty 29th
- Frankie 30th.
We lost against Singapore in the Team Racing final. At closing ceremony there was a beach party where each country had to do a performance, we decided to do the haka. Overall we were reasonably happy from the event and we learned a lot of things which willl definitely help us in the future.