Today CYSM Sea Dragons participated for the first time at the Battle on the Barwon (BOB) Time Trial. This fun and exciting event saw teams paddle 5.5km across the Barwon River in what looked to be 2°C weather! We were lucky that once we started racing, the weather had picked up and was actually bright and sunny. Our team managed to complete the event within 30 minutes and 22 seconds (overall 4th place) with only 16 paddlers, excluding the sweep and drummer. What an achievement! Many of our paddlers had already experienced what it felt like to paddle a long distance just a month ago at the Patterson Lakes 12km time trial. However, today marked the first time Alejandro (Alex) Renteria experienced his first long-distance race! Hear about his experience below.

"Today was my first medium/long distance regatta with CYSM, 5.5 km! It sounded a bit daunting at first, but I knew that with the training we’d done since the start of the season, and with the support of my teammates that anything was possible.

We all arrived nice and early and experienced a cold morning at 2°C. After the registration and warm up, we kept our focus and concentration because we knew that this was a mental challenge. We had to visualise our boat at the finish line.

We didn’t have a full crew for this race, only 16 paddlers, and we were racing against full boats, but that didn’t cross our minds. We prepared ourselves and we delivered!

We had a great start, and kept paddling in time and going long until we caught up with the next boat. After a couple of power calls that made the whole boat surge, we overtook the team in front and kept going to chase a second boat.

Then the finish line appeared, the adrenaline kicked in, and we gave it all until the end. It was one of the best regatta experiences I’ve had and it can all be summarised with determination, trust in ourselves and each other, as well as passion.

I’d like to thank our captains Carlos and Cathy for helping us to keep focus, Vicky who did a great job as our drummer and Chris who kept us going all the race with phenomenal calls."

More photos from the day (credit to: Fung, Oana and Sui) and on our club Facebook page.