The Lamma 500 experience of 2011
Another Sunday morning getting up early – this can only mean another Dragon Boat race day!
For the second race day of the season 2011, Team Loreley attended “Lamma 500”.
This is a small but competitive race event with the regular competitors in Hong Kong. After a successful day of 500 meter races in Deepwater Bay the target of Team Loreley for Lamma was, of course, to give our best and also beat our times in prior 500 meter races.
In our first Heat, which was the first race of the day, we paddled against the famous Tai Tam Tigers as well as the Royal X Team. We managed a great start and even though the timing was falling apart a bit during the body of the race, we came in second with a very good time of 2:16. Key point to take away for the further races was focusing on our own boat and focusing on timing, timing, timing…
The race format in Lamma is based on points awarded in the first two heats. The five boats with the highest points from the first two heats go straight into the Cup Final and the other teams compete in the repechage. With that said, the target in the second heat was to gain as many points as possible and come in at least second place again. We had another very good race, powered it up at the finish, and achieved our goal coming in second again. Overall we had not achieved enough points for the Cup Final and were scheduled to compete again in the repechage.
For a new experience the team decided to attend the 1000 meter races as well. How exciting! The first 1000 meter race in Loreley’s history! To save enough power for the 500 meter repechage the strategy was to keep a low rating and simply enjoy the experience. The race has a flying start and we started in place 3 following the Tai Tam Tigers. We managed to keep the rating low and the timing pretty consistent over the 1000 meter distance and were happy with the final result of 5:17.19
In our last 500 meter race, the repechage race, we threw in everything we had. It wasn’t enough to come in first. We lost it at the start and the Lantau Buffalos as well as the Fairdinkums were simply stronger!
So we finished the day with a captain’s speech and our obligatory beer race. And we enjoyed a bit more beer and a great after race party with the other teams at the beach!
We had a successful and wonderfully fun day and it reminded me again of what a great team we have and how much I enjoy paddling with Loreley.
We do have another three weeks of training to go before the Stanley Championships and our big Loreley party at Stanley beach that same day. The team will now focus the training on short distances to make sure we win a big cup in the Stanley races!
Paddels up!
Claudia Beisch