While we have over 30 Singapore Team sailors are present in Australia competing and winning in a variety of classes, I took some time out to compete in the 2005 International Moth Worlds.

Held at Black Rock Yacht Club in Melbourne , home of the reigning European Open Champion, Rohan Veal (AUS), and with 47 of the worlds top sailors from AUS, GBR, GER, JPN, SIN, and SUI competing, getting the top spot was always going to be tough.

The first 2 days of racing resulted in 3 races being conducted with Rohan Veal winning all 3 convincingly with my own scorecard of 3, 4, & 5 leaving me sitting in 4 th place overall. It was a sign of things to come.

We then spent 3 days sitting on shore as the winds peaked at 35kts and a very large swell built from the south. Not the ideal conditions for a 3 metre boat with a waterline beam of 30cm !

The lovely Melbourne weather of rain, clouds, and low temperatures had the GBR sailors thinking they we still at home in the English winter, with both fireplaces at the yacht club going full bore to keep the sailors warm.

Finally on the 2 nd last day we managed to get out at 4pm for a 1-lap mind testing race, where the wind ranged from 18kts on one side of the course to 3 kts on the other, all with a 3m confused swell running.

With the exception of Rohan all the top guys had bad results so although I finished 14 th in that race, I actually moved up to 3 rd place overall.

Finally on the last day of the event we managed to get a nice breeze ranging from 10-18kts. With only 4 races completed thus far, the Race Officer sent us of on 4 back-to-back races and over 6 hours on the water.

I managed to get great starts this day and was the only person to ever lead Rohan Veal around the windward mark, although his downwind skills left everybody in his wake as he went on to score another string of first places.

In the end I finished 4 th overall, behind Rohan Veal (AUS), Simon Payne (GBR) and Adam May (GBR), a result I am extremely pleased with given the limited time I have managed to fit in for training around coaching/managing the Singapore Olympic Squad sailors.

Next regatta for me is the European Moth Championships in Lake Garda , Italy this coming August. Just need to get Uncle Edwin to give me more time off work for training !!!!

We now move into the ISAF Grade 1 "Sail Melbourne" event, with 3 x 470 teams and 2 x Laser sailors striving for honours for Team Singapore Sailing.

Mark Robinson
Head of High Performance